Keith Vaz: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer and ask him to visit again—so successful was his last visit. When he comes to Leicester, will he come with me to visit a community-based scheme called Business-to-Business, which, over the past few years has helped hundreds, if not thousands, of people into work as part of the new deal arrangement? Does he agree that that is the basis of the new deal—enabling people from diverse backgrounds to get into full-time work so that they can help to sustain the wonderful British economy that we have at the moment?

Gwyneth Dunwoody: The benefit advisers do a very good job, but is it not fairly tacky to use such a system for people to apply for the assistance and help to which they are entitled? Would it not be better simply to ask that no Government Department anywhere in Whitehall continue the growing practice of using 0845 numbers? If people have already paid through their taxes to receive services from Her Majesty's Government which are of a high standard, no impediment should be placed in their way.

Mark Harper: That woeful performance—40 per cent. of questions not answered on the day on which answers were due—shows that the Government are failing to provide the answers that the country needs in a range of policy areas. That, no doubt, is why the Prime Minister was frightened to go the country to receive the answer to the question that we all want to ask.

David Kidney: Only in Parliament, during September, was there no debate about an early election. Only in Parliament was there no debate about an international credit crunch, a run on a bank in Britain, foot and mouth disease for the second time, blue tongue virus and the speculation about when we should call the election. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that written answers are not a suitable alternative to substantive debate about the big issues of the day, and that Parliament should sit in September?

Helen Goodman: The hon. Gentleman is right: as with many Select Committees, some sittings of the European Scrutiny Committee are held in private. When discussions have been held about making all sessions open to the public, the votes have contradicted that option. The issue is extremely controversial but the point is well understood.

Gordon Brown: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I want to make a statement to set out detailed proposals for political reconciliation and economic reconstruction in Iraq, for the security of the Iraqi people, for the future configuration, new equipment and security of our own armed forces, and about the obligations that we owe to the local Iraqi staff who have supported us in our efforts.
	I start as the whole House would want me to: by paying tribute to the seven members of our armed forces who, since July, have lost their lives in action in Iraq; Corporal Stephen Edwards, Private Craig Barber, Leading Aircraftman Martin Beard, Lance Sergeant Christopher Casey, Lance Corporal Kirk Redpath and Sergeants Mark Stansfield and Eddie Collins. I want to pay tribute also to the 18 who have died in Afghanistan; Lance Corporal Alex Hawkins, Guardsman David Atherton, Sergeant Barry Keen, Lance Corporal Michael Jones, Captain David Hicks, Privates Tony Rawson, Aaron McClure, Robert Foster, John Trumble, Damian Wright, Ben Ford, Johan Botha and Brian Tunnicliffe, Senior Aircraftman Christopher Bridge, Sergeant Craig Brelsford, Corporal Ivano Violino, Colour Sergeant Phillip Newman and Major Alexis Roberts.
	They died doing vital work in the service of our country. We owe them, and others who have lost their lives, a deep debt of gratitude. They will never be forgotten. I also want to send our wholehearted sympathy to the families of those who have fallen, and to the injured and their families.
	Our strategy in Iraq as a Government has been first, political reconciliation; to work to bring together the political groupings in Basra and across Iraq; secondly, security; to ensure that the security of the Iraqi people and the new Iraqi democracy is properly safeguarded, as well as the security of our own armed forces; thirdly, economic reconstruction; to work for an economy in Iraq where people have a stake in the future.
	Our strategy is founded on the UN mandate renewed last November in UN Security Council resolution 1723. Whatever disagreements there have been against our decision to go to war, there can be little disagreement about the unanimous UN position affirming the right of the Iraqi people freely to determine their own political future, calling upon
	"the International Community, particularly countries in the region and Iraq's neighbours, to support the Iraqi people in their pursuit of peace, stability, security, democracy and prosperity".
	Let me affirm; as I told Prime Minister Maliki last week, and as I have agreed with President Bush and our other allies, we will meet our obligations, honour our commitments and discharge our duties to the international community and to the people of Iraq.
	The future depends first of all upon sustained progress on political reconciliation. That is why, when I met Prime Minister Maliki and Vice President Hashemi in Baghdad last week, I said that it was vital—they agreed—that the three plus one leadership group of the Prime Minister and presidency council meet now to take the political process forward; that key legislation be passed on sharing oil revenues, the constitutional review and provincial elections; that the Government must reach out to disaffected groups, as well as decide on next steps on detainees; and that local elections go ahead in early 2008 making provincial councils more representative. Our message to the Government of Iraq and to the leaders of all Iraqi communities and parties is that they must make the long-term decisions needed to achieve reconciliation.
	The support of Iraq's neighbours—including a commitment to prevent financing and support for militias and insurgent terrorist groups—is also critical to ensuring political reconciliation and security. I urge all nations to implement the international compact to renew Iraq's economy, to participate in the neighbours conferences to boost co-operation and surmount divisions in the region, and to support the enhanced UN mission in Iraq. I renew our call—which I believe will be supported in all quarters of the House—for Iran and Syria to play a far more constructive role by halting their support for terrorists and armed groups operating in Iraq, continuing to improve border security, and arresting and detaining foreign fighters trying to reach Iraq. And we must all act against the presence of al-Qaeda in Iraq. When the people and security forces stand up to al-Qaeda—as in Anbar province, which it had declared to be its base—it can be driven out.
	As I turn to the security situation, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the steadfastness of our coalition partners who are working with us—there are troops from Denmark, the Czech Republic and Lithuania—and to the continuing Australian and Romanian role. The achievement of a democratic Iraq matters to every civilized nation, and I pay tribute to all 26 nations—led by General Petraeus and the US—who have troops on the ground in Iraq.
	As the Petraeus-Crocker report set out, the security gains made by the multinational forces this year have been significant, and as important as improving current security is building the capacity of the Iraqi forces so they can achieve our aim: that Iraqis step up, and progressively take over, security for themselves. In 2004, it was agreed with the Iraqi Government that in each of the 18 provinces security responsibility would be progressively transferred to Iraqi authorities as and when the conditions were right. Now we are in a position to announce further progress.
	Over the past four years, the UK has helped train over 13,000 Iraqi army troops, including 10,000 now serving with the 10th Division which has been conducting operations in Basra and across the south of the country without any requirement for coalition ground support. As we also tackle corruption, 15,000 police officers are now trained and equipped in southern Iraq. The Iraqi army 14th Division, with about 11,000 men, is in the process of joining them and has already taken on responsibility for Basra city, bringing security force levels in the south to almost 30,000 now and over 35,000 by June next year.
	Since we handed over our base in Basra city in early September, the present security situation has been calmer. Indeed, in the last month there have been five indirect fire attacks on Basra air station, compared with 87 in July. While the four southern provinces have about 20 per cent. of the population, they account for less than 5 per cent of overall violence in Iraq.
	During our engagement in Iraq, we have always made it clear that all our decisions must be made on the basis of the assessments of our military commanders and actual conditions on the ground. As a result of the progress made in southern Iraq, US, UK and Iraqi commanders judged over the last 15 months that three out of the four provinces in the UK area of control in southern Iraq were suitable for transition to the Iraqis. They have subsequently been transferred to Iraqi control.
	As part of the process of putting the Iraqi forces in the lead in Basra, we have just gone through a demanding operation which involved consolidating our forces at Basra airport. This was successfully completed, as planned, last month. The next important stage in delivering our strategy to hand over security to the Iraqis is to move from a combat role in the rest of Basra province to overwatch, which will itself have two distinct stages. In the first, the British forces that remain in Iraq will have the following tasks: training and mentoring the Iraqi army and police force; securing supply routes and policing the Iran-Iraq border; and the ability to come to the assistance of the Iraqi security forces when called upon. Then in the spring of next year—and guided as always by the advice of our military commanders—we plan to move to a second stage of overwatch where the coalition would maintain a more limited re-intervention capacity and where the main focus will be on training and mentoring.
	I want now to explain how—after detailed discussions with our military commanders, a meeting of the national security committee, discussions with the Iraqi Government and our allies, and subject, of course, to conditions on the ground—we plan from next spring to reduce force numbers in southern Iraq to a figure of 2,500. The first stage begins now. With the Iraqis already assuming security responsibility, we expect to: establish provincial Iraqi control in Basra province in the next two months as announced by the Prime Minister of Iraq; move to the first stage of overwatch; reduce numbers in southern Iraq from 5,500 at the start of September to 4,500 immediately after provincial Iraqi control and then to 4,000; and then in the second stage of overwatch from the spring—and guided, as always, by the advice of our military commanders—reduce to around 2,500 troops, with a further decision about the next phase made then. In both stages of overwatch, around 500 logistics and support personnel will be based outside Iraq but elsewhere in the region. At all times, therefore, we will be achieving our long-term aim of handing over security to the Iraqi armed forces and police, honouring our obligations to the Iraqi people and their security, and ensuring the safety of our forces.
	I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of our civilian and locally employed staff in Iraq, many of whom have worked in extremely difficult circumstances, exposing themselves and their families to danger. I am pleased therefore to announce today a new policy which more fully recognises the contribution made by our local Iraqi staff, who work for our armed forces and civilian missions in what we know are uniquely difficult circumstances. So existing staff who have been employed by us for more than 12 months and have completed their work will be able to apply for a package of financial payments to aid resettlement in Iraq or elsewhere in the region, or—in agreed circumstances—for admission to the UK. Professional staff, including interpreters and translators, with a similar length of service who have left our employ since the beginning of 2005 will also be able to apply for assistance. We will make a further written statement on the detail of this scheme this week.
	The purpose of economic reconstruction is to ensure that ordinary Iraqis have a stake in the future. So, as a result of work launched with Prime Minister Maliki in July, the provincial council has created the Basra investment promotion agency and is forming a Basra development fund—$30 million from the Iraqi Finance Minister—to help small business access finance. As announced this morning by the Iraqi Government, we have agreed on the need for a new Basra development commission. It will bring national, regional and international business knowledge together, and provide advice on increasing investment and economic growth. It will host a business leadership conference to strengthen the engagement of the UK private sector in Iraq. It will help the provincial authorities to co-ordinate projects to strengthen Basra's position as an economic hub, including the development of Basra international airport and the renovation of the port.
	I can tell the House that in addition to our support for humanitarian assistance—additional support announced today by the Department for International Development—Deputy Prime Minster Barham Saleh has announced over $300 million for investment in Basra. This will be increased again in 2008, ensuring that the third stage of what we are trying to do—economic reconstruction—can make real progress.
	The safety and security of our armed forces remains our highest priority. The Mastiff patrol vehicle offers the best known protection against mines and roadside bombs. I can announce today that, in addition to the 100 bought and deployed last year in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence is placing an order for 140 Mastiff patrol vehicles. In recognition of the work of all our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and to help our troops stay in touch with home, we will now provide additional funding from the Reserve to double the number of internet terminals and provide free wireless internet for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, so that they can e-mail their families from their living quarters.
	Mr. Speaker, I am also convinced after my visit to the region that progress cannot be fully achieved without progress on Israeli-Palestinian issues. A few days ago, we published our proposals for an economic road map to underpin the peace process—a programme for economic and social support for rebuilding the Palestinian economy and the reduction of high levels of poverty among the Palestinian people. The Foreign Secretary and I believe—as I think the whole international community does, including the US, the European Union and the Arab League—that the current dialogue between President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert offers the best chance of final status negotiations since 2000. The next step is a meeting of the parties and key international players in November, at which we would like to see an agreement that puts the Israelis and Palestinians on a path to real negotiations during 2008, leading to a final settlement of two states living side by side in peace and security. There will be a donors' conference in December. The international community will work with Prime Minister Fayyad to strengthen the economy of a future Palestinian state. I welcome Tony Blair's work as the Quartet envoy on this. The UK will continue to support the political process and to provide support for humanitarian assistance and economic development, and I assure the House of my personal commitment to doing all that we can to ensure progress. Working for a successful conclusion to the middle east peace process, taking on al-Qaeda terrorism and ensuring a more secure Iraq are all key to the future stability of the region.
	We have made commitments to the Iraqi people through the United Nations, and we will honour those obligations. We will continue to be actively engaged in Iraqi political and economic development. We will continue to assist the Iraqi Government and their security forces to help build their capabilities so that they can take full responsibility for the security of their own country. It is also important to remember what has brought us to this stage—the determination, professionalism and sacrifice of our armed forces. They have protected the Iraqi people while training their security forces to bring peace to their cities, towns and districts. The scale of their achievement will always be remembered, and we will continue to discharge our duties to them and to the international community.
	I commend the statement to the House.

David Cameron: May I start by welcoming the Prime Minister's statement? I hope that he will agree that statements on our troops should always be made in the House of Commons. I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the 25 servicemen who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since we last met. We owe them and their families a huge debt for their professionalism, courage and sacrifice.
	The whole country will welcome the fact that more of our troops are coming home, and no one will be more relieved than the families of the troops concerned. Could the Prime Minister clarify one point in that regard? He spoke about 500 logistic staff who will be based outside Iraq. Can he confirm that they will be moved from Iraq, or are some of them already based in neighbouring countries?
	May I also welcome today's announcement about the Iraqi interpreters? People who have risked their lives for Britain should never be let down by Britain.
	In Iraq, our overriding objectives should be to maximise the success of the mission and to minimise the danger to our troops. With that in mind, I wish to ask the Prime Minister about three main issues—the reduction in troop numbers, the goals and the safety of our remaining troops and the steps being taken towards a political settlement.
	On troop numbers, decisions should clearly depend on the build-up of the Iraqi army and the state of security in southern Iraq. Is the Prime Minister satisfied that the border between Iraq and Iran can be policed effectively, in what is called the second stage of overwatch, without the involvement of British troops? Is the Prime Minister satisfied that the 13,000 Iraqi troops that we have trained in the south are sufficient to maintain the security of southern Iraq?
	That question leads to the second issue—the goals for our remaining troops and their safety. When troop numbers continue to be reduced, there comes a point at which they will lack a critical mass and cannot protect themselves properly. Is the Prime Minister absolutely satisfied that the reductions will not take us past that point? Furthermore, does he think that that is the minimum number necessary for such protection?
	As the Prime Minister has said, Basra air station was subject to attack even before the move out from Basra palace. Is he now satisfied that the protection at Basra air station is adequate?
	One of the purposes of the overwatch role is to deploy the troops again if necessary. So can the Prime Minister tell the House under what criteria such redeployment would take place, who would make that decision, and what size of force is required to make the potential to redeploy credible?
	However much the international community does, there is clearly a limit to what outsiders are able to achieve. It is up to the Iraqi communities themselves to come together and achieve political stability. As anyone who has been to Iraq knows, political progress is painfully slow. The independent Government Accountability report in the United States last month said that just three of the 18 benchmarks that had been set for the Iraqi Government had been met. Will the Prime Minister confirm that no de-Ba'athification law has yet been enacted, and that laws governing the distribution of Iraq's oil revenues have been drafted but have not yet been passed?
	The Prime Minister spoke about neighbours conferences. Does he agree that it is now time for a permanent international contact group, with a permanent secretariat, to ensure co-ordination with Iraq's neighbours on the crucial issues facing the country?
	It is essential that we learn from the mistakes in Iraq and that we do not repeat them in Afghanistan: too little co-ordination, too little political progress and lack of a realistic plan. Now that more troops are coming home, may we have the independent inquiry we need to learn the lessons? The Chief of the Defence Staff said that when it comes to reporting on progress all we get are
	"snapshots...sometimes really good and sometimes really bad".
	Does the Prime Minister accept the need to provide Parliament with full, regular updates on progress in Iraq and Afghanistan, and will he take up our proposal for at least a full quarterly report?
	On reflection does the Prime Minister agree that the way in which he made the announcement about troop withdrawals last week and the way it was briefed to the press were mistakes? He promised to make such announcements to the House of Commons, but he did not. He promised that 1,000 of our troops would be brought back before Christmas, yet is it not the case that 500 had already been announced and 270 were already back in the country?
	I have to say to the Prime Minister that this is of a different order of magnitude from what we have had from him over the past decade. This is not double counting of Government spending. This is not just spinning the good bits of a Budget. This is about dealing with people's lives and the families of our brave servicemen, and does he agree that this is not an acceptable way for a Prime Minister to behave?

Gordon Brown: I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman about our obligations to our armed forces—I am pleased that he said that both at the beginning and the end of his remarks—but we also have obligations to the international community, and I would have thought that the Liberal party, with its Gladstonian inheritance, would recognise the obligations that we have internationally, particularly in relation to UN resolutions that have been passed, calling on us to support the democracy of the Iraqi people.
	On the specific questions about interpreters, let me give the House the information. There are probably 200 who would immediately qualify as past staff members. There are 250 who are staff members at the moment. There may be others who will join that list once they have done a year's service. We will discharge our obligations that they will either gain help to go to a country of their choice or be able, in agreed circumstances, to come to the United Kingdom. We will provide the support that is necessary for that to happen.
	On the right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument about force protection, I am acting, as are the Government, on military advice when I give the figures that I have given to the House today. If we are to move to the second stage of overwatch, which is primarily a role in respect of which we are giving training and support to the Iraqi security forces to operate in Basra with the police and armed forces themselves, then the figure that we have decided in consultation with our allies, and after taking military advice, is the figure of 2,500 that I am able to give the right hon. and learned Gentleman. That figure will be reached in spring next year, subject to military advice; then we will look again at the situation. But I want to dispel any suggestion that he makes that that number is insufficient for the force protection that we are talking about. The decisions that we make are made on military advice.
	Sometimes, the right hon. and learned Gentleman criticises us for having too few forces; he then criticises us for having too many. The correct position is this: we owe obligations under the United Nations to the Iraqi community. We will discharge our obligations. The Iraqis will take responsibility for their own security, and we will support them in doing so. Despite our disagreements about the decision to go to war, I hope that he will support us in the support that we give to the Iraqi people.

Malcolm Rifkind: Is the Prime Minister aware that it was said of Mr. Gladstone that he could convince most people of most things and himself of almost anything? As the Prime Minister was the second most powerful member of Tony Blair's Government and one of the few people who could have stopped this country going to war, and as the result of not doing so there have been more than 100,000 Iraqis dead and more than 2 million who have fled their country, will he now accept his share of personal responsibility for what has been the greatest error in British foreign policy in recent times?

Gordon Brown: The numbers that I have announced today make it clear that there were 45,000 UK troops at the time that Saddam Hussein fell and there will be 2,500 troops, subject to military advice, in the spring. That is a very substantial reduction in the numbers, but it is possible only because the Iraqis are now able to take responsibility for security themselves. I cannot emphasise enough that there are 30,000 people in the Iraqi security forces being trained up in the police and the armed forces in the region. It is because there are 30,000 Iraqi security forces personnel in the southern parts of Iraq that it is possible for us to reduce our troop numbers. But I will not give my hon. Friend an artificial timetable that suggests that we can leave Iraq overnight. We will review the situation and discharge our responsibilities to the Iraqi people

Kenneth Clarke: Would the Prime Minister not accept that it is becoming almost impossible to see how the cause of democracy and development in Iraq can be served by the continuing presence of British troops? It is almost impossible to see how a rapidly reducing number can play any worthwhile part in overwatch, given the disorder in southern Iraq, and it is quite inconceivable that the Prime Minister will ever come to the House to suggest re-intervention, with a surge of troops or whatever, at any stage after today's statement. If the statement is intended as political cover for removing the troops from Iraq as quickly as possible, will he give an undertaking that the only consideration will be the safety and reputation of British forces, not domestic political pressures, either here or in the United States?

Gordon Brown: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman says that the British forces are serving no purpose, that is not the view of the Iraqi Government. The Iraqi Government want our support, and not only with respect to the supply routes that we manage at the moment and the re-intervention capability that we have. They want our support to train and mentor the Iraqi troops. We had a responsibility, which we are discharging, to train up 15,000 Iraqi armed forces, and we are helping with the training of Iraqi police. I met many of the people who have come from the United Kingdom simply to train those forces when I was in Basra last week.
	I do not agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that there is no purpose served by our presence. What our presence is designed to do is to make it possible for the Iraqis to take over security of their own country. I say this to him: look at the reduction in violence in Basra. Look at the attempts that we can now make on economic reconstruction to give people a stake in the peace. Look at the progress that has been made over these last few months. If that progress can continue, the Iraqis will not only be in a position to have their security forces in place to take over from ours, but will build, through local provincial elections, a local democracy that is capable of making decisions, based not on violence, but on people coming together to decide what is the common good. I am far from agreeing with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that our forces serve no purpose; our forces are doing an important job—an important job that will end up, I accept, as simply being one of training and mentoring the forces of Iraq.

Charles Kennedy: Can the Prime Minister confirm his response to the question—which he will well recall—that I repeatedly asked of his predecessor in office, in those long months in the build-up to the war, and which he never answered? I asked whether there could or would be circumstances in which the Americans would go in without the benefit of the backing of a second United Nations resolution and the British would not? Is not the sad fact of the matter, as we all now know, that there were never circumstances in which an American intervention would not be accompanied by British back-up? As the principal bankroller of that Government policy over those years, will the right hon. Gentleman accept that that underlies all the difficulties that he is talking about this afternoon, and that it is our very presence in Iraq that is now the problem? Is it not an impossible wish, following a weekend in which he has been talking a lot about vision, for there to be a vision for a political settlement in Iraq because of the very circumstances to which our presence has contributed?

Gordon Brown: I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman entirely. We tried very hard for a second UN resolution. We worked very hard to achieve it, and unfortunately did not. Intervention in Iraq is now covered by a UN resolution. He should accept that the UN resolution is about the presence of us supporting the security, democracy and prosperity of the Iraqi people and, in my view, there will be a further UN resolution in the next few months. Instead of arguing about the causes, perhaps we could come together to support the democracy of the Iraqi people and to ensure that they have the security to run their own affairs and the economic reconstruction necessary for them to have a stake in their future. I believe that that should be common ground among all of us in the House.

Ann Winterton: I very much welcome the Prime Minister's announcement about the extra 140 Mastiff vehicles, which will be exceptionally welcome to our troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Will he confirm that the cost will be borne by the Treasury and will not come out of the Army budget? In addition, will he ensure that any necessary medium protected patrol vehicles—they are greatly needed, particularly in Iraq—will be provided and that modern doctrine will be overturned so that those vehicles that are procured will be designed to ensure maximum protection for our troops? I am talking about V-shaped hull vehicles.

Gordon Brown: I hope that there will be a general recognition in the whole House that, whatever the disagreements have been on Iraq and whatever the views have been on the slowness with which economic reconstruction has taken place, there is a unique opportunity now, as the security situation improves in the Basra province, for the work of economic reconstruction to give people a new means by which they can have a stake in the future.
	What I would like to see over these next few months—I think we will see it, if we can bring the parties together—is the security situation improving as, at the same time, we invest in Iraq and in the Basra province, I hope with British businesses involved, as well as businesses from other countries, so that we can end the very high unemployment in that area and make people see that prosperity can go side by side with peace.

Keith Simpson: When the Prime Minister made his statement in Iraq, announcing that 1,000 British troops were to be withdrawn, was that statement agreed with the Secretary of State for Defence and provided by information from him?

Gordon Brown: We now have a democracy in Iraq, which we did not have before. We have the people of Iraq voting for a new constitution and in elections for representatives. I think that the task ahead—I hope the hon. Gentleman agrees with it, despite our disagreements on the war—is to support that democracy, to enable it to take over its own security, to build political reconciliation in that country and to have an economy that gives people a stake its future. If that were the case, it would make a huge and significant difference to what happens in the rest of the middle east and the Arab states.

Willie Rennie: When the Defence Committee visited Basra in July, we found that 90 per cent. of attacks were on our forces. Is not the logical position that we should withdraw our troops, as our withdrawal from Basra palace has led to a significant number of attacks in the area? We are therefore part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Gordon Brown: There is no truth in that statement attributed to me in the papers at the weekend. As far as Syria is concerned, we continue to press it to play a far more positive role, to end support for terrorists in Lebanon, and to play a constructive role in the middle east peace process. Those matters are common ground for both sides of the House.

Peter Ainsworth: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and welcome the relief package that he has announced, although it will go nowhere near meeting the huge economic cost of foot and mouth to the farming and related industries. As the Secretary of State said, this has been a terrible year for the farming community: between them, bluetongue and foot and mouth have effectively closed down the livestock industry over huge areas of countryside at the busiest time of the year. That has caused economic hardship, but we should not underestimate the emotional hardship that it is causing in rural communities, the impact on animal welfare, or the blow to the reputation of farming and the integrity of our scientific establishment.
	Will the Secretary of State confirm that, by a cruel twist of irony, work on a vaccine to protect against bluetongue has been put on hold because it was taking place at Pirbright, the source of the foot and mouth outbreak? When does he now expect a bluetongue vaccine to be available?
	Bluetongue may be a misfortune but foot and mouth disease is different. The Government have been caught red-handed and are damned by their negligence. We know that the source of the outbreak was a Government-regulated and licensed laboratory. We also know from Professor Spratt's report that the most likely cause of the infection was leaking drains. The Secretary of State has attempted to maintain that foot and mouth escaped from Pirbright through an extraordinary combination of circumstances, but the really extraordinary thing was the state of the drains at Pirbright.
	The Government's initial reaction to the outbreak was, I am afraid, characteristic. The Prime Minister announced that he was taking personal charge and immediately sent his spin machine into overdrive in an attempt to pin the blame on Merial, the private company at the site. That was shabby and dishonest and it smacked of desperation. The reason for the Prime Minister's desperation to find a scapegoat has since become clear. As long ago as 2002, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council stated in an official report:
	"Some laboratories and other areas of the Pirbright estate are not close to the standard expected of a modern bio-medical facility and are well below that expected of a facility of such importance".
	It recommended awarding funding for biosecurity at the site. What was the reaction from the then Chancellor? In the following two years, funding from DEFRA and other Government Departments to the Institute for Animal Health was cut.
	It gets worse. In July 2004, Merial wrote to DEFRA with proposals to replace the drains. Nothing happened for two years. Tenders for repairing the drainage systems were finally received in October 2006. Why did it take so long to obtain those tenders? Why did work not start until July this year? Why were repairs to the drainage system not prioritised? Is it not clear that if the Government had acted in a timely way on the repeated warnings about the integrity of the effluent pipes at Pirbright, the farming industry would not be facing a bill for hundreds of millions of pounds, and the reputation of British science would not have been dealt a body blow.
	Will the Secretary of State confirm that among the dangerous pathogens held at the Pirbright laboratories are viruses lethal to humans, such as E. coli, BSE and avian flu? Is it purely a matter of chance that it was the foot and mouth virus which escaped from Pirbright and not some more deadly disease?
	Does the Secretary of State accept that the Government's failure to secure the laboratories at Pirbright amounts to gross negligence? What provision has been made for compensating the farming community for the costs that it is suffering as a result of the Government's negligence?
	The Pirbright site was last inspected in December last year. What were the findings of that inspection? Why was the licence to operate not withdrawn? Can the Secretary of State confirm that if a dairy farm had been found to have such poor biosecurity, it would have been closed down?
	The Secretary of State states that a safety alert has been issued to all animal pathogen category 3 and 4 laboratories, which will be followed by inspections. On the basis of the inspection regime at Pirbright, what confidence can we have that they will be thorough and that any recommendations will be acted upon?
	I represent a Surrey constituency. I know how traumatic this whole affair has been for Surrey farmers and others in the immediate area, but I have also recently met with hill farmers in Wales. They too are deeply concerned about the viability of their businesses, about the welfare of their animals and about their own families and future. The same is true across the country. People want to know exactly how this disease got into the environment, yet that is the one question that the Government refuse to investigate further. How very convenient.
	How many people have been disciplined or removed from their posts as a result of this catalogue of negligence? Who is going to take responsibility? Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to apologise? Can we not conclude that if this is what happens when the Prime Minister takes personal charge of a crisis, he is better off out of it and that, if the Labour Government cannot be trusted to deal with the foot and mouth virus, they cannot be trusted with anything?

Hilary Benn: I shall come to the drains in a moment, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me.
	A vaccine for bluetongue may, we hope, become available next year. It depends on the speed with which those who are working on a vaccine can develop one, the speed with which it can be shown to be safe and effective, and the speed with which sufficient supplies of it can be manufactured so that all farmers—not just those in East Anglia but those in northern Europe who have been affected by bluetongue as it has spread across the continent—can have it available.
	The hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) Surrey said that the Government refuse to investigate how exactly the virus got out. With respect, that is not the case. As soon as it became clear that the likely source of the outbreak was Pirbright—we knew what the strain was and that it was not currently circulating in animals—what were the first two things that the Government did? One was to ask the HSE to come in and investigate and the second was to ask Professor Brian Spratt to come in and look at biosecurity, with a commitment to publish in full their reports, which we did on 7 September. With great respect, to advance the argument that the Government have not been interested in trying to find out what happened does not bear examination when the hon. Gentleman looks at the facts.
	What do those reports say? They say that it was most likely to have been caused by—they cannot say for sure—an inactivated virus going into the drainpipe, the condition of the drains, the heavy rain and the flooding that brought it to the surface, and the movement of vehicles. Why were there vehicles on the site at Pirbright? They were on the site because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we are in the process of investing a considerable sum of money in upgrading the facilities. The answer to his question is that, in 2002 and 2003, reports were produced. In 2005, the Government decided that we would invest £121 million— [ Interruption. ] I will come to that point in a moment. One of the two reviews that I have established in the light of the reports will look into that fair point.
	Why were there vehicles on the site? Because work is under way to spend the money on renewing the facilities at Pirbright. Some £31 million of that money has already been spent on the site. It is a very fair question to ask and I have asked it too: if people thought that the drains were that much of a problem, why was some of that money not spent? The answer was that until the state of the drains was drawn to our attention, and everybody else's, as a result of the HSE investigation, nobody thought that they were in such a condition. That happens to be the truth.
	The next question relates to the inspection and licensing regime. I have asked Sir Bill Callaghan to look at the way in which we license, regulate and inspect institutions handling category 3 and 4 pathogens. Frankly, it is not a good system—reflecting upon it now—to have an organisation that is a significant customer of an institution also being the licensor and regulator. That is something for Sir Bill Callaghan to reflect on when he reports back to me by December. My view, subject to his advice, is that we need to have a different system in future. We have taken seriously what happened: not only have we put a mechanism in place for looking at what should happen to the licensing of the handling of animal pathogens, but we have issued a notice to all institutions handling category 3 and 4 pathogens affecting human beings as well as animals. The review will look at that, as will the second review overseen by the BBSRC; it has responsibility for the Institute for Animal Health, and it will look at the management and governance of that body.
	On compensation, I have made an announcement about support. We can best support the farming industry to recover from this very difficult time by controlling the disease, winning the confidence of Europe and reopening farm-to-farm movements. We must also reopen markets, which we have done: despite the difficult history, last week we got an agreement from the EU that meat product exports will resume. All the farmers I have spoken to have said that the single most important step that can be taken is the resumption of meat product exports, and we are determined to help make that happen, but it depends on persuading our European colleagues.
	Finally, am I sorry that this has happened? I have already said that I am. Nobody would have wished this to happen, and I repeat that it should not have happened. But when something like this goes wrong—as it has—what is the most important thing that we should do? We should learn the lessons, sort it out and make sure that it does not happen again.

Hilary Benn: On the question of legal obligations, in the end, that is a matter for the courts to determine. We are aware that some of those affected by this outbreak are consulting lawyers, so it is only right and proper that we should await any proceedings that anyone may choose to bring in those circumstances.
	Secondly, the best help that we can give to those in the lowlands is to do what we have been doing: to try to get economic activity restarted. The single most important thing that we can do is to allow farmers to trade again, which is why so much effort has been devoted to that, and why we divided the country into a risk area and a low-risk area, regionalising the country in order to try to allow farm-to-farm movements and the resumption of markets as quickly as possible. In effect, we put a bigger buffer zone around the protection and surveillance zones in Surrey—Europe said that it wanted to add an extra buffer, which is why other counties have been brought in—thereby enabling a decision to be taken on the resumption of meat product exports. I hope that before long, the matter is in the hands of the Commission and of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health, not me, and that the size of that buffer zone can be reduced, so that more farmers in more counties can benefit from the steps that have taken place.
	Why have we not introduced a welfare disposal scheme? One reason is that I have not received representations from the National Farmers Union and others saying that that is the single most important thing that we should do in England. I recognise that the situation is different in Scotland and Wales, which is why they are proceeding with such schemes. Indeed, the farmers' leaders whom I have spoken to have stressed the importance of getting economic activity started again.
	With respect, I reject what the hon. Gentleman says about a culture of impunity within DEFRA. There is a very important point that he needs to bear in mind, particularly in relation to the drains. DEFRA's role is as licensor and regulator. The consultation that took place with it, as licensor and regulator, was about whether, if the drains were changed, a new system would be adequate for the purposes of licensing and regulation. DEFRA was not at any time asked for funding to replace the drains. Why not? For the very simple reason that it is the licensor and the regulator. A factory that had a problem that the HSE identified would not say to it, "By the way, you are the licensor and regulator—can we have some money to put it right?" The proper place to go is of course the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, which is the organisation responsible.
	The second point concerns what I said to the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), who speaks for the official Opposition, about the considerable amount of money that has been put into this site already. I share with him the question as to why, if it was so important, some of that money was not directed to it. The answer is that people did not think that it was as important as it turned out to be. That is the truth.
	Will there be a public inquiry? No, there will not. What am I doing in addition to the two inquiries that I set up immediately we discovered the likely source of the virus? In addition to those two inquiries and the reviews by Bill Callaghan and the BBSRC, we have asked Iain Anderson, who reported on the 2001 outbreak and therefore appears to be the most appropriate person to do it, to reflect on how this outbreak has been handled. He can look into all the matters that he wants to and then he will report back to us. The report will also be published.
	In other words, there will have been two inquiries, two reviews and another inquiry led by Iain Anderson. I hope that the House will agree that that shows that the Government take their responsibility seriously. I know that the hon. Gentleman is keen to point fingers at individuals: I am much more interested in putting things right.

Hilary Benn: Yes. The epidemiological report that was published suggested that the lesions in the animals at infected premises 5 could have been three or possibly four weeks old. That gives us part of the answer to the question that we all asked on 12 September—where has the virus been for a month and a bit? The answer was that it had been outside the original protection and surveillance zone, undetected and, as a result, unreported. That reinforces the point that inspection is the first line of defence and it fills in a gap in the timeline. That is what has transpired, and I am not interested in pointing a finger at anyone else in relation to this issue: as I said to the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne), I want to fix it.

Hilary Benn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words and his support and interest during what has been a very difficult time for his constituents. In truth, I cannot guarantee that it is over. I can simply tell the House that, 66 days in and after eight cases, there has not been one for a week. I am sure that the House will understand if we say that in the light of the experience that we have all been through this summer, I am inclined to be a bit cautious about trying to predict the future, but I am working as hard as I can to try to safeguard the present.
	I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that the investment that the Government had previously announced—and that has already started to go into Pirbright—will continue. It is important that we have first class facilities. Old is not necessarily unsafe, which is the point that Professor Brian Spratt made in his report. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the vital role that Pirbright plays in protecting us from animal disease more generally and the role that it has played in turning round test results really quickly, which has enabled us to take quick decisions about how to deal with it in the circumstances.
	On compensation, we have of course compensated all the farmers who lost animals through culling and we paid for primary and secondary disinfection in all the infected premises, but if farmers wish to pursue further compensation cases, I refer the House to the answer I gave a little earlier.

Hilary Benn: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for joining me at Skipton market last Thursday, where he made the very good point that the market is not just crucial to the livelihood of his constituents, but is an important part of their social networks. I saw that for myself. He is absolutely right. As I travelled down to Newmarket, I encountered exactly the point that he has raised.
	I want to be frank with the House about the dilemma that we face as far as the bluetongue zones are concerned. By putting the zones in place in the way that we have, we are trying to restrict the movement of bluetongue to other parts of the country. But the price of that is that the farmers I met in Newmarket said, "Well, I'm not sure that we are going to go to the sales in Skipton and elsewhere next week because, while we can buy the animals and bring them into the bluetongue zone, we're not sure that we can ever get them out again because of the restrictions that you've put in place."
	The dilemma for the industry, and for us—let us be frank about it—is that we are balancing trying to minimise the likelihood that bluetongue will spread to other parts of the country, which would be the consequence of widening the zone to allow greater movement and trade, and a passage to abattoirs, against trying to minimise the economic impact for both the hill farmers that the right hon. Gentleman represents and the farmers in East Anglia who would be buying. The right place to have that conversation is with the industry. In the end, yes, we will have to take a decision, but it is a real dilemma. Those conversations are taking place now and it is important that, as Members, we all contribute to them, because it is a tough choice to make.

Bernard Jenkin: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Given that I have an outbreak of blue tongue in my constituency and that I unfortunately failed to catch your eye following the statement, is there some way in which I can bring extra pressure to bear so that I might raise the matter on the Adjournment of the House?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman was not called at the time of the statement, but he will appreciate that it went on for nearly an hour and that lots of hon. Members have an interest in these matters. He is an experienced Member of the House and he will know that there are other ways of raising these issues. The point that he has made has been noted, and I am sure that he will find other ways of raising the question of blue tongue in his constituency.

Edward Garnier: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I fully appreciate the time constraints that the House, and therefore you, are under this afternoon. Can you ask the Speaker to contact the DEFRA ministerial team directly, to see whether it might be possible to have a subsidiary statement later in the week? The blue tongue boundary goes straight through the middle of my constituency, and I have constituents who are affected either way. It would be hugely important for the welfare of my constituents and indeed for the greater edification of the House if the Secretary of State for the relevant Department could be asked to come back here to discuss the matter further this week.

Jack Straw: My hon. Friend anticipates me, and I hope to ensure that he is satisfied with what I have to say.
	Let us take part 6 of the Bill, which relates to the possession of extreme pornographic material. Ten years ago, the internet was in its infancy, Google was not even a word in the English language and possession of pornographic material was by proof of control of the physical material—silver oxide photographs on paper, celluloid film or video tape. Distribution, too, was by physical means. Now we have the internet, and along with the innumerable benefits that it brings have come significant risks to public protection. Information, photographs and videos can be shared instantaneously across the world, but so too can deeply offensive, violent and illegal pornography.
	We believe that those who produce and publish this vile material in the UK are already covered by current legislation, but we need the new offences created by part 6 for those who possess it, because the makers and distributors are very often operating across borders, from eastern Europe, the United States and elsewhere.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: May I apologise for addressing my right hon. Friend as the Home Secretary? No gratuitous insult was intended. What powers under part 1 of the Act and the youth rehabilitation order are not available under one or other of the number of orders currently available to the Crown or magistrates court?

Jack Straw: My hon. and learned Friend will no doubt wish to take a 100 lines to remind himself that I am now the Lord Chancellor. I am proud of my period as Home Secretary, too, during which I always enjoyed his full support. Additional coverage is available under the order specified in part 1 of the Bill, including in respect of residential and activity orders.

Jack Straw: Would that that were the case. There is no doubt that the additional places that we have provided, and will continue to provide—at twice the rate of the Administration that the hon. Gentleman supported—have contributed to the fact that, whereas between 1979 and 1997 crime doubled, since 1997 crime has gone down by at least 35 per cent. on whatever measure one wishes to use, including under the British Crime Survey. Similar reductions in violent crime have also taken place. I invite him to look at that study, which was done entirely independently.

Nick Herbert: I am afraid the Minister of State will have to wait and see, if he can bear the tension.
	Alongside the successive criminal justice Bills, we have seen a succession of sentencing reviews and a constantly shifting sentencing framework. There are other sentencing reviews now in train that the Bill does not take into account, including the review on indeterminate sentences, which the Lord Chancellor has announced, but has not confirmed to the House.
	Let us dwell briefly on the elements of the Bill that we can agree on. In relation to the pornography offences, we support the principle of clause 64, which implements measures to combat possession of images that are both extreme and pornographic. We also support the principle behind clause 67, which relates to the penalties applied for possession of extreme pornographic images, and clauses 68 and 69 relating to indecent photographs of children. As usual, we will need to look at the drafting, but the whole House will share a determination to protect children from paedophilia and society from images that could provoke violence. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who has worked tirelessly to promote more robust action in relation to those issues.
	We also support the principle of clauses 104 to 106 regarding a new offence of causing nuisance or disturbance on NHS premises and the powers to remove offenders from hospital premises. However, given that that measure will not apply to patients who are violent towards NHS staff, we will have to look in due course at how effective that will be in practice and whether it affords nurses and other NHS personnel the protection that the whole House believes they deserve. We also support the creation of the prisons commissioner, so long as the commissioner has the power to recommend criminal sanctions akin to those in the Corporate Manslaughter Act against the Prison Service and other state agencies that are charged with the custody of individuals, and so long as his appointment is not a ground for delaying the implementation of the Corporate Manslaughter Act.
	We will look carefully at the proposed offence of inciting homophobic hatred because clearly there are important considerations in terms of the right balance between protecting free speech and a desire to protect gay people from hatred. We will debate the provisions in Committee once we have seen them.
	The core purpose and effect of the Bill is confused; will the Bill send fewer people to prison or more people? Clause 16 proposes to limit recalls to prison to 28 days, provided the Secretary of State is satisfied that the prisoner will not present a risk of serious harm on release. The Government say that the measure will save 1,000 prison places, but we are opposed to it in principle. We want a more effective process for recalls, but we believe that offenders who breach their conditions should expect to return to prison to serve out the rest of their sentence.
	The Bill also abolishes the power of magistrates to suspend custodial sentences, and again we oppose this interference with judicial discretion. The crimes in question have passed the custody threshold. Before even considering a suspended sentence, the magistrate must decide that a final probation would be insufficient. If they cannot suspend the sentence, they will have to jail the offender.
	There is another concern; a provision that is intended by the Government to reduce the prison population could have the opposite effect. The National Association of Probation Officers has warned that the abolition of the power is justified on the grounds that some magistrates use it instead of fines or unpaid work. Nevertheless, there is a real risk that many magistrates will impose custody instead of suspension and the association goes on to predict that it will increase the prison population by 1,000.

Nick Herbert: I agree. That is another gaping hole at the heart of the Bill and I will turn to that issue in a second.
	Some 17,000 prisoners are now doubling up in cells, twice as many as when the Government came to power. Nearly a quarter of the entire prison population is housed in cells designed for one fewer person. We have just seen the obscenity in the 21st century of a wing of a prison in this country closed because of sewage and rat infestation. There has been a huge increase in suicides in our prisons and, contrary to the Minister of State's claim, that increase in prison suicides this year far outstrips the rise in the jail population. The Government's own figures show that suicides are far more likely in overcrowded jails and that an inadequate number of new prison places will not keep pace with the rising custodial population.
	There needs to be proper accountability for deaths in custody and the fact that the Government resisted their own corporate manslaughter legislation in relation to prisons and police cells—eventually only accepting it with a delay of years—demonstrates that Ministers know there is a serious problem but have been unwilling to take the steps to deal with it.
	These are the issues that we will address when we come to consider a provision in the Bill that we welcome—the appointment of a commissioner for offender management and prisons. The Government, frankly, have simply stood by and watched as the prisons have filled up. On 24 July, the Minister of State conceded that
	"it is clear that a gap remains between the number of new places and the forecasted rise in the prison population."—[ Official Report, 24 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 755.]
	They know there is gap but they are refusing to tell us what they are going to do about it and they are producing a Bill that will increase the prison population in spite of that.
	The Ministry of Justice's median projections of future prison population show that there will be 12,370 new prisoners by 2012, but only 9,500 new prison places by the same date. That is a gap of 3,000. If all of the measures in the Bill were implemented, those measures increasing the prison population would, on the Government's own estimate—it is wildly behind the forecasts of the National Association of Probation Officers—add 49. Those that would reduce the prison population would subtract 1,100. According to the Government's own figures there remains a serious gap in the projected prison population that is not addressed by the Bill, even on its own terms.
	We need a coherent strategy to address the crisis, but what we get is political grandstanding. Part 11 of the Bill concerns itself with foreigners who commit crimes in Britain. On 25 July, the Prime Minister told  The Sun: 
	"If you commit a crime you will be deported. You play by the rules or you face the consequences...I'm not prepared to tolerate a situation where we have people breaking the rules in our country when we cannot act."
	Then, two weeks ago in Brighton, the Prime Minister said:
	"But let me be clear: any newcomer to Britain who is caught selling drugs or using guns will be thrown out. No one who sells drugs to our children or uses guns has the right to stay in our country."
	However, today in his press conference the Prime Minister made it clear that he was talking only about newcomers to this country.
	First, we were told that all foreign criminals would have to be deported, then we were told that it would be drug dealers or gun criminals, and now the Prime Minister confirms that he is in fact talking only about people who have yet to visit this country. The Prime Minister simply does not understand the damage that that kind of spin has done to politics and his own Government—not only over the past 10 years, but, specifically, in the last two weeks.
	The Prime Minister knows that he cannot remove thousands of foreign criminals from our country, not least because Labour's own laws prevent it. He could not even deport the murderer of Philip Lawrence because of an EU directive, which the Lord Chancellor negotiated, and the Human Rights Act, which the Lord Chancellor introduced. That is why we say that one of the major flaws in relation to this Bill, which is intended to deal with the issue of foreign prisoners in our country, is the HRA itself. That is why we have said that the HRA should be scrapped, and replaced by a British Bill of rights and responsibilities that would enable us to take the necessary action against, for instance, those who commit acts of terrorism.

Nick Herbert: Just wait a second, please. The Lord Chancellor's preposterous suggestion that this policy would increase the prison population by 60,000 is clearly based on the fact that he has not read what we said. Given that we have not said what the minimum and maximum should be, there is no way that he can calculate what the increase in the prison population would be. All that we have had is a series of increasingly fanciful projections from the Lord Chancellor about what the increase in the prison population might be under an alternative Government. One day it is 60,000; another day, it is 320,000. Instead of spinning in this way, he should address the serious overcrowding problem in his jails; he has to decide what he is going to do about that. It seems that this Government have learned nothing from the last week—from the spin that has so damaged them.

David Davies: Will my hon. Friend the shadow Minister accept the good wishes of the many victims of crime I know who have formed an organisation called "stop all forms of early release"? They include the parents of murder victims and the rape victim Gabrielle Browne, who publicised her own story in the London Evening Standard because she was so angry that the person who had raped her had been let out of jail early. Does the Minister of State not agree that it is high time that prisoners serve the sentences given to them by the courts? Does he not also agree that this policy would not only save money in the long run, but would save people like Gabrielle Browne being raped by people who have been let out of prison early?

Keith Vaz: I promise to be briefer than the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert)—obviously, as I am subject to the 10-minute limit—but I am delighted to be asked to participate in the debate. I wish to use the opportunity to raise issues related to the new special immigration status, intermediate sentences and compensation for victims of miscarriages of justice.
	The House has waited 11 months since the gracious speech of 15 November last year, when the Government's intention to reform the criminal justice system was first announced. In some respects, it was as a result of the new threat facing this country. Since that time, Britain has faced serious attempted terrorist attacks, on 29 and 30 June this year, which if successful could have killed hundreds of innocent people. As the Prime Minister mentioned in his statement to the House on 25 July, the issue of pre-charge detention periods will be looked at again. That is why I am glad that the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, will give evidence to the Home Affairs Committee tomorrow.
	The concept of the Bill goes back to the Home Office report "Rebalancing the criminal justice system", published in July 2006 as part of the Government's commitment to better empower our police and probation services to protect the public from violent offenders and antisocial behaviour. Since then, the organisation of the Departments with responsibility for our criminal justice system has undergone significant change. We now have the new Ministry of Justice, headed by my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor, with responsibility for criminal law, sentencing and prison management, and a Home Office dedicated to policing, national security and managing immigration. Of course, the Bill cuts across both Departments.
	Despite the fact that crime has fallen consistently under this Government, there remains a perception, which has been highlighted over the summer, that crime committed by violent and serious offenders is an increasing threat to law-abiding citizens. I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House would wish to express their sincere sympathies with the families of those killed recently in tragic and high profile cases. Rhys Jones was only 11 years old, walking home from a football match, when he was viciously gunned down by a youth on a bicycle. Only last week, Magda Pniewska, a Polish care worker—one of a number of migrant workers supporting our health service—was shot dead in crossfire between two men.
	Such cases are clearly uncommon in British society, which is why they have caused such great revulsion and attracted so much attention. They raise two different issues regarding the management of our criminal justice system. The first is how we prevent people from falling into a life of crime and better support the work of our police service in carrying out effective policing and preventing such crime. The second, which the Bill seeks to address, is how to ensure that our criminal justice system has a serious reputation for properly punishing the most serious, persistent and dangerous offenders. When those crimes are committed by foreign nationals, how do we ensure that they no longer remain a threat to British society?
	It is my strongly held belief that immigration, properly managed, has been a great benefit to this country. Migrant workers have been of great importance in sustaining the longest period of continuous growth this country has witnessed. From the old Commonwealth and now from eastern Europe, workers such as Ms Pniewska are providing the backbone of our health and public services. Without them, Britain would be a less dynamic, less efficient place. That is why I am concerned whenever we see headlines, based on anecdotes, that claim that immigrants have brought crime and violence to our country. Such sensationalism creates real, although largely unwarranted, public anxiety.
	If such headlines are combined with reports that because of our obligations under the European convention on human rights—fanned only this evening by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), who is no longer in his place—our Government are powerless to remove foreign criminals, there appears to be a real crisis in the system. The Bill, in clauses 115 to 122, seeks to address those concerns by the creation of a special immigration status. That status would permit the offender to lawfully remain in the UK, but would not grant leave to enter or remain. Once people were designated with the new status, the Government could impose conditions on their residence or employment. I do not object to the purpose of these clauses. But I urge the Government to seriously consider whether the proposals are necessary given the strong concerns that many groups have expressed, with some of which I am in sympathy.
	In managing convicted foreign criminals, I am not sure that it is in the interest of the Home Office to add yet another immigration status for it to manage and cost. I am aware of reports from Justice that the new status would cost another £1.1 million to administer over the next three years. The Bill's criteria for designating individuals with special immigration status are also remarkably broad. The intention of the new status is to target "terrorists and serious criminals", but I am concerned that under the current criteria foreign individuals who pose absolutely no threat to this country would be encompassed by this legislation. That would unnecessarily dilute the Government's rightful concentration on the more serious criminals.
	I also ask the Government to look closely at the Bill's power to impose restrictive conditions on those with special immigration status. I would welcome the Minister's providing more detail on what types of condition could be imposed.
	At the top of the public's agenda is the issue of sentencing and sentencing guidelines. Based on what the Lord Chancellor has said this evening, I very much hope that when he gives evidence tomorrow to the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs he will outline the further steps he intends to take on the issue of intermediate sentences.
	Finally, I want to address the provisions on compensation for individuals who have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. On 24 March 1986, my constituent, Malde Modwadia, was wrongfully convicted of obtaining property by deception. When that conviction was quashed under section 133(4) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, he applied for an assessment in respect of loss of income and the compensation due to him for false arrest and conviction. Under the Bill's proposals, there will be a cap on the amount of compensation granted to people who have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. It is extremely important that we look carefully at those provisions, because when a person has been in prison for as long as my constituent, who actually lost his status as a doctor as a result of wrongful conviction, they should be properly compensated.
	In conclusion, I warmly welcome the Bill as a step towards a safer society. The Government have achieved much in the fight against crime and although there is disagreement between the Library, which says that 60 criminal justice Bills have been passed, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, who says that the number is 35, and the Lord Chancellor who says that 30 Bills altering our criminal justice system have been passed, the fact remains that there have been a lot of Bills dealing with the issue over the past 10 years. It is not enough to legislate, however; we have to carry people with us. Every citizen is a stakeholder in ensuring a nation, a community and a street without crime. Opposition spokesmen in particular use the words "zero tolerance" about dealing with crime, but zero tolerance should not be a statement or philosophy imposed on individuals; it should be a personal commitment from each citizen that they will not tolerate crime locally.
	I support the Bill and with the caveats that I have just expressed I hope very much that it will receive a Second Reading.

David Heath: It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) in his first outing in the Chamber as Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. He made some sensible comments about the Bill, especially about special immigration status, which is a matter we shall want to look at carefully in Committee.
	The one point where I disagreed with the right hon. Gentleman was over the strange business of the counting of criminal justice Bills. I certainly heard the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) say that the number was 35 and I thought I heard the Lord Chancellor entering a plea of guilty and asking for another four to be taken into account. There is an almost annual procession of criminal justice and/or immigration Bills, so I suppose we must be grateful that in this instance we have a portmanteau Bill that covers both headings.
	I have to enter an objection to the process. It is extraordinary that a Bill of such complexity and importance is being introduced at this stage of the parliamentary timetable—a few weeks before the end of the Session—with the expectation of the Government that it will receive carry-over, which is not the purpose for which the carry-over procedure was introduced, and with a heavily truncated Committee stage. The programme motion on which we shall vote later requires us to complete our Committee proceedings by 30 October. For a Bill of 129 clauses and 235 pages, that is an extraordinary reduction in the amount of scrutiny the House will be afforded and I do not accept that it is an appropriate way of dealing with a Bill of such importance.
	As has been said, the Bill is one of those extraordinary measures that emanate so often from the Home Office—and now from the Ministry of Justice—that appears to be a convenient piece of legislation on which any and every item can be hung with no common threads between what is proposed. The significant problem I have with so much of what the Government propose in the sphere of home affairs and justice is that they mistake legislative action as a substitute for executive action in actually getting our systems to work properly.

David Heath: I am grateful to the Minister for that assurance but that is not actually what the motion says. If that is what is intended, it would have been helpful if it had been said. However, we must take the hon. Gentleman at his word.

Edward Garnier: The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) is right to point out that oddity on the Order Paper. Paragraph 2 of the motion states:
	"Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 30th October 2007."
	That is perfectly clear English. The carry-over motion, No. 3 on the Order Paper, deals with incomplete business that can be resumed in the next Session, but if the Committee stage has been completed all that is left in the House is Report and Third Reading, so the hon. Gentleman is perfectly right. Perhaps the drafters of Government motions need to apply their minds to what motions mean as opposed to what they think they mean.

David Heath: I think the hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right. That was my reading of the motions. I can assume only that the Government intend to propose a motion at the start of the next Session of Parliament for recommittal. If that is the case and they can give that assurance—

David Heath: I think I heard the Minister give such an assurance, so I invite him not to press motions 2 and 3 tonight and to return to the House tomorrow with motions that are in order and make clear the Government's intention. However, that is enough about process. Let us deal with the substance of the Bill.
	Part 2 deals with sentencing. We heard an interesting exposition from the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs of what he understands by the term "honesty in sentencing". I agree that it is an essential missing ingredient of the Bill. The Liberal Democrats have argued for a long time that when a sentence is handed down in court it should say what is going to happen, for the benefit of victims, witnesses, the public and, indeed, defendants. That means that we need a change in the way that sentences are described in court so that there is a statement of the term that is to be served and the additional term that will be served if the prisoner does not accept the disciplines of the penal system. That seems an entirely appropriate way of dealing with matters.
	Our judicial and criminal justice systems are put constantly into disrepute by people realising that a sentence of a particular length of time means a much shorter time in practice. We argued against automatic release schemes, as did the Conservatives, and our suggestion would not require more or fewer people to be in prison, but simply clarity in the courts, which is in the interests of the criminal justice system. We certainly intend to table amendments in Committee to make that a reality and I hope that we shall have the support of the Committee in doing so.
	Secondly, I welcome the provision for judicial discretion in the discount procedure, if we have to accept the present system. The Lord Chancellor was careful in the words he used to support the judicial decision in the Sweeney case. I wish that the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (John Reid) had been equally discreet when the sentence was given. When Home Secretaries vilify the bench because of a system introduced by the Government, it does nothing to further the interests either of justice or judicial independence. I hope that future occupants of the position of Home Secretary will understand that point and perhaps be guided by the Lord Chancellor in so doing.
	Thirdly, we must recognise the crisis in our prisons—again, something that was alluded to by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs. We have an ongoing disaster in our prisons, but I do not accept the simplistic thesis that we can deal with it simply by building more and more prisons and putting the same categories of prisoner into them. That does not work. We need to ensure that those who should not be in our prison system are taken out, to leave room for the proper rehabilitation of prisoners who must be in prison for the protection of the public, quite rightly. That involves moving those with mental illness into secure mental institutions, taking those with drug and alcohol problems into places where they will have treatment and taking out those who are serving very short custodial sentences, which do not work. Sentences of three months or less have an almost 100 per cent. recidivism rate. Therefore, what on earth is the point of using valuable prison space to impose a sentence that will have nil effect on the offender reoffending? There are better and tougher ways to deal with those offenders in the community.
	I should like to deal next with perhaps a rather crucial issue. Some right hon. and hon. Members may have read the story in  The Times of 28 September 2007, saying that the brand-new National Offender Management Service, on which the Government have invested so much money and attention, is to be scrapped. I have heard no official rebuttal of that most extraordinary story.

David Heath: I am glad about that, and while the Minister is pondering these very difficult things, he can explain why £155 million has been spent on a computer system that still does not work and an extra £33 million is required—something that perhaps one of our very excellent Committees that examine departmental expenditure might like to consider, to discover why the new system, on which the Government have invested a large amount of money and attention, is not meeting any of its targets at the moment. That is a concern because, when we do not have an effective probation service particularly, we put members of the public at risk. We see that frequently in the limitations of early release that involves insufficient examination and assessment, and people therefore commit offences having been released from prison too early. We ought to avoid that.
	The Lord Chancellor—I keep wanting to say Home Secretary and I have to remind myself that he is the Lord Chancellor—is interesting in what he has to say on his "Have-a-go hero" strand. That is not to sneer at him for what he said about his own role or, indeed, at anyone who tries to prevent crime, but it is very hard for us to reconcile what he said at conference and in his press releases and public statements with what has been consistently said from the Treasury Bench in response to that question when it has been raised in private Members' Bills.
	I am not fully convinced by the argument that a change of law is necessary. Indeed, I accept many of the assurances that were previously given by Ministers that there is no defect in the current law. However, there is an enormous defect in the policies that are understood by the police and other investigating officers. Frankly, they occasionally pursue absurd investigations and arrests, and that occasionally gets through to the prosecution service as well. It is absolutely essential that we get a bit of common sense into the policing of the issue, so that people understand that reasonable force is perfectly acceptable and, indeed, commendable and that only where grossly disproportionate force is used should the investigating authorities look at the householder rather than their assailant, the burglar or whatever.
	The Bill has some useful parts. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 is revisited, as is the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. I largely welcome what has been suggested in that respect. I welcome clause 53, which will remove the automaticity of the reprimand and final warning legal proceedings. I welcome clause 10 on the abolition of suspended sentences for summary crimes. I understand that I differ from Conservative Front Benchers in that respect, but it seems quite wrong that suspended sentences are used in the magistrates courts as a substitute for immediate sentences of a different kind, which was certainly not the Government's intention. Although the Lord Chancellor went into one of his more Gilbert and Sullivan moments in referring to the punishment fitting the crime, I support condign punishment. It is absolutely right that we should seek to find appropriate remedies for breaches in the law.
	I worry that the Bill presents a wider range of disposals, without the resourcing that is necessary for the probation service and others to support those disposals in the community. I am concerned about clause 18, which deals with the change in the requirements for reference from the Parole Board for recall. Again, that is putting effectively a judicial decision in the hands of the Executive, and I wonder whether the lawfulness of that change, like others, will be challenged eventually.
	On compensation for miscarriages of justice, the Government have got things completely the wrong way around. They are trying to make the limit on compensation for miscarriages of justice the same as the limit on compensation for the victims of crime, but the problem is the limit of £500,000 that they introduced under the criminal injuries compensation scheme, not the fact that people who have had the worst thing inflicted on them that a state can inflict—imprisonment for a crime that they did not commit—should be compensated properly. Rather than limiting that liability, the Government should be extending the capacity for criminal compensation.
	The Lord Chancellor has been referred to as a grey beard on occasion over the past few days. I heard him suggest this morning that that was perhaps an inappropriate description, but he has shown a degree of wisdom befitting his rank and status in agreeing to look again at clause 26 and the rewrite of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) questioned the application of what is proposed in the Bill to the Mullen case. If we in this country are to accept circumstances in which extraordinary rendition is whitewashed by legal procedure, we are on a very slippery slope indeed. I think that the Lord Chancellor now recognises that that is the purpose of the amended wording that will be introduced, and I welcome that and am grateful to him for it.
	On violent offender orders, we now have a huge panoply of civil remedies for the avoidance of criminal offences and, indeed, in substitution for criminal proceedings. Some of them work; some do not. We have always argued that ASBOs have a place, but only if they are accompanied by much closer supervision and support for the offender to prevent reoffending. It is very hard to understand exactly what category of offender is likely to be caught by violent offender orders. Why is there not a simple read-across from the sex offenders register, so that we are aware of the whereabouts of violent offenders and they have a reporting system, but with no further sanction? I will consider that very carefully in Committee with my hon. Friends, and we shall assess how effective violent offender orders are likely to be.
	In dealing with the clauses on nuisance or disturbance on hospital premises, I wish to say that nothing excuses violence or disorder in a hospital or GP premises—a point made by a Labour Member—that gets in the way of proper treatment. Indeed, I was a co-sponsor of the Bill, now an Act, introduced by the Father of the House to deal with difficulties in the emergency services. However, it is hard to understand the precise wording of the clauses. It is difficult to understand why it specifies hospitals and not other NHS premises and why it does not refer to patients, who are often the principal offenders. I am afraid that those involved are often not just people who walk in off the streets; if we go to any accident and emergency ward, we will often see people admitted as patients, seeking treatment, who nevertheless display violence against medical officers. Lastly, it is hard to see why the issue is not covered by existing law.
	I refer the Lord Chancellor in all seriousness to the 1999 case of Porter  v. Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis. It appears to deal with an exactly analogous position: a breach of the peace, civil trespass, a person refusing to leave premises after being asked to leave, the attendance of the police and an arrest for breach of the peace. The precise circumstances covered by the offence in the Bill are covered by that case.

Edward Garnier: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome for interrupting him just as he comes to the end of his speech. However, at the beginning of his remarks, he introduced some concerns about the procedure. We need to get those sorted out now before we go too far. I want to raise this point of order before he has sat down, so that he has an opportunity to deal with it from his party's point of view.
	Madam Deputy Speaker, you will see in the Order Paper the Government's motion in relation to the Bill's Second Reading. It is clear from that that the programme motion, which is to be considered after the Second Reading debate, is to limit the extent of the Public Bill Committee, which must conclude by Tuesday 30 October 2007. Report and Third Reading consideration are not given a date; nor are other proceedings. However, if the House agrees to the motion, the carry-over permits the Bill to be dealt with again in the next Session. I think that the Queen's Speech is on 6 November—

David Lepper: I shall be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to confine my remarks to clauses 64 to 66 in part 6, which deal with extreme pornographic material.
	Jane Longhurst, my constituent, was a respected and dedicated teacher at a school for children with learning difficulties in my constituency. It happens to be the last school where I taught before I retired from teaching, but we did not work there at the same time. Obviously, Jane's murder caused concern throughout the whole community. During the trial of Graham Coutts, there was horror at the revelations about how she had died and the circumstances surrounding her death. Everyone was shocked.
	I believe that it is because of the determination of Jane's mother, Liz Longhurst, and other members of her family and the responsiveness of Ministers of this Government that those clauses are before us tonight. I welcome that. Liz Longhurst decided that her daughter's death should not go unmarked and that the extreme pornographic images that had fuelled the fantasies of the man who was twice tried for Jane Longhurst's murder—the family had to go through the horror of a trial twice—had to be dealt with. She launched a campaign, which, I am glad to say, received the backing of Amnesty International as part of its campaign against violence against women.
	The campaign, aspects of which I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) will want to discuss if he has the opportunity, received the backing of local newspapers. I must pay tribute to  The Argus newspaper, published in my constituency, and particularly to Phil Mills, who was its chief crime reporter, although sadly no longer.
	The campaign led to a 50,000-signature petition calling for action being presented in the House. There has been determination on the part of Mrs. Longhurst—the fact that we are discussing the issue is a tribute to her—and on the part of many of the predecessors of those on the Government Front Bench. I pay particular tribute to the former Home Secretaries, my right hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) for the sympathetic way in which they listened to the case for legislation that we put to them. I also pay tribute to other Ministers who have dealt with the matter—in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins) and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker).
	We were determined that something should be done to tackle the pernicious trade in violent internet pornography. I welcome the way in which the Government have responded to the campaign. The provisions before us tonight do not go as far as many of us want, but they tackle an important aspect of the issue: the possession of those awful images. In doing so, they fulfil one of the requirements that the Lord Chancellor said in his opening remarks is an underlying principle of the Bill: to make sure that the law keeps pace not only with changing patterns of crime, but with technology and the way in which it affects patterns of crime. I wish we had proposals before us tonight to tackle at source the internet sites that purvey this material. However, that needs a degree of international co-operation that, sadly, despite the determination of Ministers, we have not yet been able to achieve—in the same way as we have achieved international co-operation to tackle child pornography. That is a further stage of the campaign.
	The provisions do tackle possession. I ask the House to consider the comments of Jim Gamble, the chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and, at the time he made the comments, the lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers in this area of criminality. He said:
	"Legislation is only truly effective if it develops step by step with technological advances."
	The provisions start to address the issue of how the internet can be used to supplement this area of criminality and build on the fundamentals of obscene publications legislation.

Alun Michael: I welcome this ambitious, wide-ranging Bill, which consolidates the progress that has been made in the past 10 years. It is a progressive piece of legislation. It is disappointing that the official Opposition did not engage with it more seriously, particularly as the Lord Chancellor has responded positively to some of the questions asked about the detail of the Bill.
	When it comes to implementing the Bill, the challenge for the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office is to give people working in all parts of the criminal justice system clarity about what is expected of them. In recent years, even when legislation has been clear, there have been far too many mixed messages. Guidance and the detailed implementation of specific measures have been less clear than Ministers intended. The courts sometimes seem confused about how it all fits together, and as the Bill is about clarity, consolidation and progress, this is an ideal opportunity to set matters right. I make that point because the criminal justice system is highly complex, and the devil is in the detail, as my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor has always been fond of pointing out.
	I want to refer to several specific provisions in my role as critical friend. First, I want to discuss the Bill's overall purpose. As the Library's excellent note on the Bill points out, the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 clearly set out the overall purpose of the youth justice system. The Act says:
	"1) It shall be the principal aim of the youth justice system to prevent offending by children and young persons.
	(2) In addition to any other duty to which they are subject, it shall be the duty of all persons and bodies carrying out functions in relation to the youth justice system to have regard to that aim."
	Clause 9 of the Bill clarifies the approach that the court should use in sentencing, and I welcome that, provided that the courts do not confuse the issue by separating their responsibilities in sentencing from the overarching statement of purpose set for the whole criminal justice system, of which they are a part. My point is that the courts seem well able to forget what they are for. That is an important point, because the more that young offenders offend, the more that they damage their victims, the community as a whole, themselves, their peer group and their family, so we must not lose that focus.
	Secondly, on the sentencing of young people, the proposal to combine 15 different requirements in a single youth rehabilitation order is welcome. Having so many different orders became confusing for young people, parents and the public. There are challenges: first, we need to know what is working and what is not, so each specific use of the 15 categories needs to be accurately recorded on each occasion. When an order is made, if it incorporates, say, three of the requirements, each should be recorded in the statistics, and the outcomes should be monitored. The Prison Reform Trust expressed concern that a generic community sentence could reduce the hierarchy of disposals available to the court. There are two ways of dealing with that genuine fear. The first is to make it clear that the order will be used on several occasions with a persistent offender, but with different choices being made from the menu on each occasion. The second is to get rid of the idea of a hierarchy of disposals altogether, because it is a lazy way of sentencing. It means that a court could fail to use the appropriate disposal, which might end a criminal career, because the offender is too high up the tariff, or not high enough on it. Either one is madness; what counts is getting it right in each case.
	As a magistrate and as a youth worker who worked with young offenders before entering the House, I particularly welcome the addition of the activity requirement. Engaging the young person's mind in new interests and challenges is frequently successful, especially when it is applied at the same time as interventions that address the offending behaviour and its causes, as the new style of order will do. It is not a soft option; it is an essential, tough element in ensuring a comprehensive approach to diverting young people from crime. I also welcome the introduction of youth conditional cautions and the Government's intention to do more to embed restorative approaches in the system.
	Thirdly, on antisocial behaviour orders, clause 108 creates a statutory requirement to review after one year an ASBO placed on a young person aged under 17. That is good, but I remind Ministers that when I introduced the ASBO in 1998 I assured the House that the Government intended it primarily as an order for adults, and that it would be used only exceptionally on young persons. The whole point of the ASBO is to prevent further offending. To take the message of the ASBO to heart, offenders have to appreciate what they have to lose, and teenagers often have no sense of risk. It has worked well and has been successful when properly used, but it is less successful with the younger age group, so I urge Ministers to implement the clause, but to change the guidance so that the ASBO is used as designed and intended.
	The ASBO is an effective measure of deterrence and prevention. It deals with the reality. It is a movie film, rather than the snapshot that the courts normally deal with. It prevents what it forbids—a test that most laws fail, as Gibbon pointed out in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". Someone who obeys its requirements has no criminal record and no punishment, and is deterred from a life of crime, but it comes into disrepute when used in inappropriate circumstances with those who are too young to understand what it means, or the risk that they run if they breach it.
	My fourth point is on the protection of NHS staff. I welcome the clause on that subject. Our front-line staff in the NHS deserve protection. However, looking outside the legislation, I ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson), to consider the success of the approach to violence reduction adopted in Cardiff. It is 10 years since my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor came with me to meet Professor Jonathan Shepherd in the accident and emergency unit in Cardiff, and saw what was being done to identify the cases of violence that were draining NHS resources. It was discovered that many incidents were unreported. A clinical analysis of the experience in the NHS showed that targeted action could reduce both alcohol-related violence and domestic violence. The result is that Cardiff is now the safest city in its cohort of cities. The public is safer and the waste of NHS resources on avoidable, expensive treatment has been reduced. That lesson should be applied elsewhere.
	Fifthly, I want to deal with clause 12 on indeterminate sentences. The Bill will result in a different sentence for the offender who is given an indeterminate sentence. The Prison Reform Trust comments that in an increasingly risk-averse culture, that could become the default setting. It has a point, especially as the courts, rather than having a clear focus on getting it right, often appear more at ease following a pattern of sentencing. There is no quick fix on that issue. The point of an indeterminate sentence is to manage risk and prevent danger, so one cannot determine matters entirely at the point of sentence. We need to look at the clause with care. We do not need tougher or softer sentencing; we need better targeted sentencing, combined with an effective system of managing the risks, and we need to give those in the system the confidence to address the risks effectively.
	Sixthly, on sharing data, I am pleased that clause 75 provides custodial penalties for those who knowingly and recklessly disclose personal data, but will the Minister stress clearly that this must not be used as an excuse for failing to disclose information when it is appropriate—for example, in order to prevent and reduce crime, as set out in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998? "If in doubt, don't disclose" is still the default setting for too many data controllers and lawyers, whereas the right response is always to balance the requirement of data protection against the public interest in disclosure and to make a responsible judgment.
	There are many other points in the Bill on which I would love to comment, but I am conscious that many of my hon. Friends wish to speak. I will therefore simply say that this is a good piece of legislation that has my support, and I am delighted that the Government have sought to cover so many important issues within the context of the Bill.

Alan Beith: I should like to record my congratulations to the new Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz). He served with me from the beginning on the Constitutional Affairs Committee, which is shortly to become the Justice Committee. He was acerbic in his questioning of Ministers, and showed neither fear nor favour to Ministers of the Government whom he supports. I hope that he will apply that rigour to his new work; I am sure that he will.
	May I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) on teasing out the issue of the programme motion? I am glad that there have been discussions on that, and that it looks as though the issue will be resolved satisfactorily. I would expect no less from the Lord Chancellor. He always shows an exemplary degree of recognition of the importance of procedures of the House—by the admittedly not always demanding standards of the present Administration—and that is something that I have come to expect from him.
	It is necessary to look at the background to the Bill, because in some respects it has been built on rather shaky foundations, given some of the problems that we face in the criminal justice system. Prison numbers have been cited several times, with 81,000 and rising, and hundreds in police cells. The early releases under the end-of-custody licensing scheme have also caused concern, and the prison officers' dispute is a matter of serious concern to the Minister of State. Whatever view we take of the tactics used by the Prison Officers Association, we need to bear in mind the prison officers' deep sense of being undervalued.
	The Minister came to my constituency and together we visited Acklington and Castington—a prison and a young offenders institution. I will give the House an example that the right hon. Gentleman will remember. The prison officers asked how it was that they, who were carrying out their jobs on behalf of our society, were almost the only public servants who were not protected from the effects of smoke inhalation when going about their work. Prisoners are allowed to smoke in their cells and, as the Minister observed, in some cases that involves groups of cells and other areas in which they can move about, and into which the prison officers must go. "Yet again," said the prison officers, "nobody thinks about us when laws are drafted or policies devised." The Minister must be aware from some of the meetings that he has had that many prison officers feel seriously undervalued, not just financially but more widely as well.
	The Carter review into the custodial estate and sentencing represents another element of uncertainty in regard to the foundations on which this legislation rests. I also referred in an earlier intervention to the chaos over indeterminate sentences for public protection. They are being used far more widely because of the lack of judicial discretion available. They are applied to summary offences, and now cover 153 offences, some of which would normally attract a very short sentence. The result is that the Parole Board cannot deliver reports in time, and people are therefore being detained when there is no proper basis for doing so. The whole system collapsed in Wells and Walker  v. the Parole Board. In the meantime, the president of the Queen's Bench Division said that the Parole Board needed 100 extra judges to manage a system operating on this scale. The chief executive of the Parole Board has said that £3 million has been allocated to the National Offender Management Service to address the problem, but
	"where the infrastructure will be found to spend that money properly, I do not know".
	That is a system that is going very seriously wrong indeed.
	Meanwhile, NOMS itself is proving as wasteful and useless a superstructure as we all warned that it would be. It was bolted on top of a system that was already under strain, and we could have used the money required for the creation of NOMS in much more constructive ways. Mrs. Brennan of the Ministry of Justice is reported to be carrying out a fundamental review—to which the Minister referred earlier—which might even recommend the break-up of NOMS, even though it could retain some nominal overall structure. On top of that, the NOMS information technology system is in chaos.
	As if all that were not enough, there is an unresolved dispute between Ministers and the senior judiciary over the safeguarding of judicial independence. That has particular relevance to sentencing. We still have not had any kind of statement from the Lord Chancellor on whether further discussions on that matter are taking place, and I hope that we shall have the opportunity to press him further on that this week.
	None of those problems will be solved by the Bill. Even where it addresses some of them, it does not seem to tackle them effectively. I have read and re-read clause 12, on indeterminate sentences, and it might be a mark of my inadequacy, but I still cannot understand what its effect will be. It certainly will not be to remove the problems relating to indeterminate sentences that I have just identified.
	Of course, there are good things in the Bill, most obviously perhaps the fact that it will give a statutory basis to the prisons ombudsman. That is overdue, necessary and very welcome. However, some of the Bill's provisions could actually add to the number of people in custody. For example, some of the provisions in clause 2 on youth offender orders, and even those in clause 72 on street offences, could have that effect.
	The Bill raises some important wider issues that have not been considered by the Constitutional Affairs Committee, and any view that I express on those will be a personal one. I shall confine myself to just one of them. Clause 26 will allow the Court of Appeal to form a view when considering whether a conviction is unsafe on the basis of abuse of process, and to form its own view as to guilt on the basis of the evidence available to it. I am glad to hear from today's discussions that that clause is to be reviewed. It would give the Court of Appeal a fact-finding role—not its normal role—and has the potential to undermine the integrity of the judicial process by allowing bad process to obtain a conviction. This could encourage what has misleadingly, or perhaps euphemistically, been called "noble cause corruption"—that is, the fabrication of evidence in order to obtain convictions when satisfactory evidence does not exist.
	Having made my criticism of the clause, however, I believe that we must also consider this question. If there is sufficient evidence of guilt but there has been some abuse of process, who should be punished? The danger is that if the method of dealing with abuse of process is to allow the appeal and free the offender, it will not be the person who has carried out the abuse of process who will be punished. It will not be the police officer who has fabricated evidence, or the prosecutor who has admitted into the prosecution case material that should not have been so admitted who will be punished. It will be the public, the community, who will have a dangerous criminal against whom there is clear evidence of guilt released on to their streets. So it will be the public who are being punished, not the person who perpetrated the offence.
	While it must be wrong to found conviction on unsafe processes, it is also wrong that the punishment for an abuse of process should be visited on the public, who are seeking the defence of the criminal justice system, rather than on those who have carried out the abuse. Wherever possible, the system ought to be punishing the abuse rather than stepping back from the determination of guilt. I am not convinced that the clause has got this right, although it does address a genuine—if quite rare—problem. The Government are right to try to address it in the Bill, and I hope that we can arrive at a satisfactory solution through further discussion. I hope also that, in response to the consideration that has taken place today, those discussions will be suitably measured, not only on that clause but on the many other features of this complex Bill.

Phil Wilson: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me this opportunity to make my maiden speech during the Second Reading of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which I believe will help to make our communities safer when it is implemented.
	During the Sedgefield by-election, I became aware that antisocial behaviour continues to be a constant worry for local people, even in an area such as Sedgefield where, because of this Government's policies, crime is well below the national average. Sedgefield constituency has been in existence since 1918, except for a short period between 1974 and 1983 when it was absorbed by other constituencies in County Durham. I pay tribute to those MPs who represented Sedgefield prior to 1974.
	If anyone had said to me, when Sedgefield re-emerged in 1983, that our Labour candidate would become leader of the Labour party and then the first Labour Prime Minister since 1979, that after 10 years he would resign his position and leave Parliament to become a middle east envoy, and that I would become his successor after fighting a by-election, I would have asked that person whether they had ever thought about taking up writing fiction. Fact, it would seem, is much more original than fiction.
	I would like to take this opportunity to wish Tony Blair, my predecessor, all the best for the future and put on record that I believe that this side of the House owes him a great debt of gratitude for the 13 years of leadership that he provided to the Labour party. The country owes him the same for the 10 years of leadership that he gave this nation. I know from speaking to him about it that he will always hold a special place in his heart for the people and communities of Sedgefield. I would also like to give Tony Blair's successor as Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr. Brown), my best wishes. I look forward to many more years of his premiership.
	I have always lived in Sedgefield and it is an honour and a privilege to represent the area where I grew up. For the people of Sedgefield, politics is not a game. For them, politics must do what it says on the tin. I hope that I can live up to that simple but honest request. I am the son of a coalminer. My Dad worked down the pit for almost 40 years and when I left school, he encouraged me to go on to do whatever I wanted, but he did not want me to follow him down the mines. He wanted better for me and, likewise, I want my family to go on to aspire. Aspiration should not be the preserve of the privileged few. It is something that we should all be allowed to reach for. That is one of the reasons why I joined the Labour party and it helps to form the basis of my creed.
	I grew up in the Trimdons—a cluster of former mining communities in the north of my constituency, which share the same heritage as many other villages in Sedgefield such as Wingate, Wheatley Hill, Thornley, Deaf Hill and Station Town to the east and Fishburn, Bishop Middleham, West Cornforth, Ferryhill and Chilton to the west. It is those communities that are remembered when Sedgefield is referred to as a former coal mining area. When Tony Blair became MP in 1983, the coal mining area of County Durham had been ravaged by the then Conservative Government—and those memories run deep. In those days, hope and aspiration were neglected and thrown on the spoil heap of unemployment and deprivation.
	When my predecessor made his maiden speech on 6 July 1983, he drew attention to the plight of the unemployed in Wingate. He said:
	"In the area of the Wingate employment exchange, which covers a very large part of the constituency, unemployment now stands at over 40 per cent. A large proportion of the unemployed are under 25 years of age... Those young people are not merely faced with a temporary inability to find work. For many, the dole queue is their first experience of adult life. For some, it will be their most significant experience."—[ Official Report, 6 July 1983; Vol. 45, c. 314.]
	Today—24 years later and 10 years into a Labour Government after my predecessor led us into victory in 1997—I am proud to say that the unemployment rate in my constituency is at or below the national average. Where there were 5,500 people in Sedgefield out of work in the mid-1980s, there are now just over 1,000 today. Today my constituency is ringed by new or refurbished hospitals, with a new hospital built on the outskirts of Sedgefield village itself. Education results are massively improving and there are now more than 1,000 new businesses in County Durham. Between Fishburn and Sedgefield, there is a new science park, NetPark, which is nurturing new cutting-edge technologies, which will attract highly valued jobs to the area so that we can face up to the challenges of globalisation. For those among us who care to compare Sedgefield today with the Sedgefield of the 1980s, they will see that it is a better place, in no small measure because of the resilience of my constituents and the policies of this Labour Government.
	In the west of the constituency lies Newton Aycliffe, a new town and the largest conurbation. It is a thriving community, with a population of 25,500 and to its credit one of the largest industrial estates in the region. Newton Aycliffe is a town with a bright future. The town has its issues, such as the regeneration of the privately owned town centre, but it was William Beveridge himself, the father of the welfare state and founder of the new town movement, who became chair of the Newton Aycliffe development corporation in 1947.
	To the east of Newton Aycliffe is the town of Sedgefield, after which the constituency is named—an ancient town, but with modern aspirations. Like other communities in the constituency, it keeps an eye in a forward direction. Further to the south, the constituency is more rural and includes the communities of Hurworth, Heighington, Middleton St. George and Piercebridge. It is an area of the constituency that is different from the rest, because in the by-election it was there that the Liberal Democrats stopped saying that they were the alternative to the Labour party and started saying that they were the alternative to the Conservative party.
	The identity of Sedgefield has been transformed since 1983. It is now confident, aspirational, proud of its coal mining heritage and I will continue to march with the miners' banners through the streets of Durham on gala day. However, the future lies in technology—once the preserve of science fiction—with strong communities, outward looking and ready to face the challenges of the 21st century.
	We live in a world where change can be fast and can seem threatening to an already existing way of life. Others more cynical may want to exploit that for their own ends. I am talking about the presence of the British National party. I raise that concern not for my own sake, but for the sake of the communities I represent. The BNP had not been present in Sedgefield until the local elections, but then their leaflets arrived on our doorsteps. They spread discontent, where discontent did not exist. They talked about a rising tide of crime, when crime in Sedgefield is below the national average. They talked of Sedgefield being "swamped by immigrants", to use their language, where in fact 99 per cent. of the population saw themselves as white British in the census of 2001. That kind of cynical politics has no place in the communities where I grew up, where the watchwords are compassion and solidarity.
	The people of Sedgefield are at their best when challenged. They do not turn to cynicism or prejudice. They draw from the deep well of community and solidarity, which has nourished the area for so long. The words,
	"by the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we achieve alone"
	are not written down, or even spoken, but they are acted upon. For example, estates that have been pestered by antisocial behaviour have pulled together to root out the problem. In West Cornforth, the Cornforth partnership runs a successful youth project, which has seen the reduction in the amount of antisocial behaviour in the village. Local people and agencies have pulled together and united around progressing the well-being of their village. Likewise, in Ferryhill, the Ladder project is doing similar work and is a tribute to the local community.
	Those are examples of hope—and where there is hope, aspiration follows. What gives aspiration structure is education. We need to give our young people the wherewithal to fulfil their potential and equip them for the challenges of the future, which is why I endorse this Government's approach to education.
	Sedgefield has changed beyond recognition in my lifetime, but it is only in the past 10 years that the heartbeat of optimism has found its rhythm. I can assure my constituents that I will fight to protect their communities, promote their interests, serve them with diligence and build on the success of this Labour Government. With that, I have a lot to do, and I am grateful for the opportunity to make this, my first speech, to the House.

Virendra Sharma: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me the opportunity to make my maiden speech. First, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on his maiden speech. I know that there are many more excellent contributions to come from him in the future.
	It is a great honour and privilege to be elected to the House, to represent the people of Ealing, Southall and to speak in this historic Chamber. Almost 115 years ago, Dadabhai Naoroji, Member of the House for Finsbury Central, delivered his maiden speech. Today, as one of his ardent admirers, I have the privilege of making my own. Times in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 21st century are very dissimilar, but it is nevertheless a great tribute to the great democratic tradition of this great country that both of us, having been born in India under totally different circumstances, were sent by all the electors of our respective constituencies to this House. He delivered a message of hope, justice and fair play for all, irrespective of colour, creed or station in life. In my own humble way, I intend to do the same on behalf of all my constituents.
	Thirty-nine years ago, when I came to this country, I brought with me the secular and non-violent tradition acquired from my father's involvement in the Indian freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi. In this great country, my reception was mixed, and my aspirations marked by the limitations that I felt around in those yesteryears. Ealing, Southall is a constituency with a lot of people from the Indian subcontinent who had great ambition and drive to drop anchor here and contribute to the economic and social life of this great metropolis of ours.
	Following the traditions of the House, I would also like to pay tribute to my immediate predecessor, the late Mr. Piara Singh Khabra, whose sad death in June of this year caused the by-election that resulted in my being elected to this House. In 1992, I was pleased to see him elected as the first Asian MP for Ealing, Southall. I stand in his place, though not, out of humility, in his shoes, given his great service to my constituents. He was a tireless campaigner on behalf of his constituents, and he and his wife Beulah gave 15 years dedicated service to the people of Ealing, Southall. His was a lifetime of service to the community, fighting injustice and intolerance. He will be long remembered for his hard work in the constituency that helped many individuals and also unified the many different communities in harmonious and peaceful co-existence. He will be a hard act to follow.
	My election in July was the first message that the British people gave to the Prime Minister of their resounding confidence in his ability and the courage of his convictions to lead our country in these difficult times to greater heights and to implement his vision for change. I identify fully with his efforts to connect to people's aspirations, problems and concerns directly and raise once again the profile of Britain as a moral leader in a peaceful world.
	In introducing my constituency to hon. Members, I am aware that many of them visited Ealing, Southall during the recent by-election campaign, so I recognise that some are already well acquainted with the unique place that is Ealing, Southall—the Leader of the Opposition seemed to like my constituency so much that he visited it no fewer than five times during the campaign. To all who visited Ealing, Southall, I say thank you, and to all those hon. Members who helped in my campaign I say a personal and special thank you.
	For those who did not have the pleasure of visiting Ealing, Southall during the by-election, we are in west London, bounded in the east by Ealing common, the north circular road and the District and Piccadilly tube lines, and in the west by the Grand Union canal, almost reaching the Hayes bypass and close to the Heathrow airport. The southern part of the constituency, just north of the A4 and M4, includes south Ealing, Northfield and Norwood Green, where I have had the privilege of representing local people as a councillor for more than 25 years. To the north we are bounded by the Ruislip road and the pleasant environs of Greenford. Bisecting the constituency and linking Ealing, West Ealing, Hanwell and Southall from east to west is the Uxbridge road, the route of the 207 bus, on which I once plied my trade as a bus conductor.
	The constituency has a proud history, with many historic buildings and institutions. They include Ealing and Southall town halls; Ealing studios, home to the Ealing comedies and today providing a state-of-the-art facility for film and media companies; Pitzhanger manor, home to the famous architect Sir John Soane and next to Walpole park, where the excellent Ealing jazz festival takes place each summer; and the Wharncliffe viaduct in Hanwell, built in 1844 by Sir Isambard Kingdom Brunel and jealously referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound) in his glorious maiden speech; as well as the three bridges and numerous magnificent churches, mosques, Sikh and Hindu temples, including the largest Sikh gurdwara in Europe, in Havelock road, Southall.
	The constituency is also rich in culture, with Questors theatre providing west end-quality performances in the queen of the suburbs and the Dominion centre in Southall showcasing so many diverse cultural performances and exhibitions. Ealing, Southall is also a tourist destination, with film buffs visiting locations used for many classic films, and, as many hon. Members discovered in the by-election, culinary experts visiting Southall for its wonderful food, especially its world-famous curries.
	What I am most proud of, however, is my constituency's great tradition and history of welcoming new arrivals, as well as the community cohesion that exists, as numerous communities from all over the world live together in harmony and peace. The Government's recent report on community cohesion, led by Darra Singh, the chief executive of Ealing council, was able to draw on many valuable lessons learned in my constituency. More than half the population is from an ethnic minority, the overwhelming majority coming from an Asian background, mostly Punjabi. There are significant Hindu and Muslim populations, but the Sikh community is the largest in the area, and in 2008 the third Sikh faith school in the UK will open in the constituency.
	Being a member of this House who was born in India and who represents a constituency with large numbers of constituents either of Indian birth or descent, I would like to conclude with my reflections on the positive partnership that exists between Britain and India and on how it will benefit all my constituents, regardless of where they come from, and indeed all peoples of both countries. As in Ealing, Southall, the two countries are at ease with each other. For Britain, India is a natural partner for business and culture. Ealing, Southall is a gateway for much of that trade and culture to pass through, in either direction. Our countries also share the belief that education, especially higher education, is the most important factor in a successful life. Harnessing those forces and common beliefs will lead to prosperity for all.
	Once again, I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to give my maiden speech and I thank the House for listening to me.

Philip Dunne: I am delighted to be the first Conservative Member to welcome the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Sharma) to the House, and to congratulate him on a very thoughtful maiden speech. As he rightly anticipated, many Members who are in the Chamber this evening and many more outside had an opportunity to visit his constituency not long ago. I was one of them, and I must admit that—not being as familiar with it, and as used to driving around it, as he was as a result of his previous career—I did not always find it quite as easy to make my way around it as he no doubt did during his campaign.
	The hon. Gentleman's thoughtful comments about the relationship between this country and the Indian sub-continent were very welcome. I am sure that he will be able to bring that experience to bear in the House in the months, if not years, to come.
	I approach this debate having had the privilege of serving on the police service parliamentary scheme, from which I graduated earlier this year. I served with the West Mercia police, which gave me an excellent opportunity to understand the challenges that face our police daily in the area served by the force that covers my constituency. A month after my graduation dinner, they were brought home vividly to me by the tragic, and ultimately fatal, shooting of a West Mercia police constable, Richard Gray. He was shot in the head with a rifle, and fatally wounded, in Shrewsbury. One would not have thought that Shrewsbury was a hotspot for violent gun crime, but I am afraid that that is symptomatic of the problems that have been developing in our society, with gun and knife crime doubling over the last 10 years. I want to put on record my condolences to Mr. Gray's wife and two sons. He was a very brave officer who served with the armed response unit in Shrewsbury, in the Shropshire division.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) put the Bill in context. Given the plethora of criminal justice Bills that we have seen over the last 10 years, I regret that yet again we have missed an opportunity in failing to deal with some of the worst aspects of the growing violent crime in our society. The carrying of a gun or a knife should, in my view, be subject to more stringent sentencing. Where other countries have introduced stringent sentencing for the carrying of violent weapons, it has had a significant impact in acting as a deterrent to reduce the badge of honour for carrying guns or knives which is now so prevalent, particularly among the drug gangs that inhabit some of our inner-city areas.
	The Boston experience is often mentioned here, but I do not think it has been mentioned yet this evening. It is worth reminding the House that there was a significant increase in the number of young homicides in Boston, on the east coast of the United States, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The community united under the leadership of the local governor and mayor and put together the Boston gun project, which had a remarkable impact in reducing the number of young homicides. I believe that the number of such violent deaths fell by more than 60 per cent. as a result of that operation and the sentencing changes that were introduced, and that the reduction was sustained for several years. It is a great shame that part 8 of the Bill, which deals with the introduction of violent offender orders, does so little to seek to get to grips with the problem.
	I want to touch on two other parts of the Bill. Part 4, which covers young offenders and prisons, is, I fear, another missed opportunity. Last month, Stoke Heath young offenders institution near Market Drayton—in the constituency north of mine—erupted into the second major disturbance in 12 months. I visited it in the summer and saw for myself the overcrowding, which has led directly, in my view, to that problem. Over 30 per cent. more young people are incarcerated in Stoke Heath than it was built for. A building programme is under way to provide more places, but that is woefully late. The problem that that causes for the inmates there is that they are unable to spend the amount of time that they are expected to spend, which should be provided, going through the basic education and basic rehabilitation, which will make them better equipped, when they are released, to fit into society and to minimise their prospects of reoffending.
	There is a major challenge for all those involved in seeking to rehabilitate our young offenders and, again, that is not addressed in the Bill. The youth community sentencing that is set out in part 1 does not go anywhere near addressing the major challenges. It is a sticking-plaster to try to assist with soft, low-level crime. It does not deal with the harder issues that are caused by increasing drug-related crime.
	Drug offences have risen 43 per cent. to almost 195,000 in 2006-07. Of those who enter into custody, some 55 per cent. are established problem drug users. In some prisons, that is up to 80 per cent., but the drug treatment and testing orders have failed to help those individuals to get off drugs and to kick their habit. Eighty per cent. of those who are issued with DTTOs reoffend within two years. What is needed, and what is missing from the Bill, is a serious proposition for this country to provide facilities to rehabilitate drug offenders. That would have far more impact on reducing crime and reoffending than the youth community sentencing in part 1.

Philip Dunne: I am grateful for that perceptive point. I agree that drugs are readily available within the prison population, and the Government seem to have nothing in the Bill to seek to address that problem.
	There are rehabilitation formats that work. I have an excellent one in my constituency in Willowdene Farm, which has an exemplary track record in getting people off drugs. Many of them have offended and gone to that place following a prison term. However, the Home Office budget for the drugs intervention programme has been cut 13 per cent. this year. It is currently £149 million. It was over £170 million last year. That is another example of the Government saying that they are going to try to do something, but the controller of the purse strings, our new Prime Minister, cut resources to the Home Office. Consequently, the Home Office is having to make cuts in those programmes.  [Interruption.] Does the Minister wish to intervene?

Philip Dunne: Clause 114 is a seemingly innocuous clause about the inspection of police authorities and grants the Audit Commission wide-ranging powers to inspect the performance of police authorities. The present powers are limited to compliance with best value.
	That raises a few suspicions in my mind. It was the police authorities that led the resistance, along with a number of hon. Members and a small number of courageous chief constables, to the outrageous proposals to regionalise our police forces last year. I have a nasty feeling that this is the Government's way of getting back at police authorities. It is a classic example of the centralising tendency of this Government to seek to impose from the centre their will on bodies over which they do not at present have complete control. That is another missed opportunity. Instead of seeking to control police authorities in the same way that policing priorities are controlled from Whitehall, the Bill should be looking at a much bolder option—providing genuine local accountability to our police forces by introducing, for example, elected police commissioners. That would give local people a real opportunity to direct police priorities to reflect the problems in their areas.
	One of the issues that I have noticed during my parliamentary service has been the degree to which our police are directed by the prevailing urban preoccupations of Whitehall to seek criminals for crimes that do not exist in many rural areas. Local accountability through an elected police commissioner would deal with that centralising problem. That is another opportunity that the Bill has missed.

Martin Salter: I rise to support the Bill, which contains many measures that we welcome in my constituency. I particularly welcome the commitment that we had from the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), to introduce a new crime outlawing homophobic hate crimes, which will be welcomed by many in the Christian community and across all other faiths.
	The Bill will bring in violent offender orders, of which we have heard much today, and will extend the existing crackhouse closure powers. That is particularly appropriate in Reading, because Reading borough council and the local police authority were the first to use the crackhouse closure powers with good effect. We have banged down many doors in Reading and shut down establishments that were making life a misery for law-abiding citizens who lived nearby.
	I am pleased with, and will note with interest, the development of the youth rehabilitation orders. I agreed with some of the response to my intervention on the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) in terms of the quite scandalous rates of reoffending that we have in our young offenders institutions. It was my privilege at the Labour party conference to share a platform with the Minister of State on this subject. I commend to all hon. Members the excellent work of the national grid scheme, which is providing apprenticeships for young offenders to learn a trade and to be able to compete in the employment market once they have completed their sentences. I accept that the scheme cherry-picks the prisoners who go on the scheme, but the scheme—it started life in Reading prison, which is why I am highlighting it—has cut reoffending rates from 70 per cent to 7 per cent. Give them a future, training and the chance of a job and there is a very good chance we might see those concerned not walking back through the doors of a prison or young offenders institution in the future. That is the way forward.
	I really want to talk about part 6 of the Bill, which is the culmination of a three-year campaign to try to bring justice for Jane Longhurst, who was brutally murdered by Graham Coutts, a self-confessed addict of violent internet pornography. We do not want justice for Jane through the criminal justice system, because Coutts is doing a very long time in prison and both of his appeals, I am delighted to say, have been rejected. We want justice for Jane through the parliamentary system because, frankly, the internet has changed everything.
	The extreme material that will be outlawed by the Bill covers acts and imagery that are already illegal under the Obscene Publications Act. But that legislation was introduced in an age before computers and the internet to deal with newsagents and publishers. We cannot go after the publisher of material if it is from an internet site whose server may be based in Guatemala and contains, produces or puts into cyberspace images of young women being captured, raped live on camera and sometimes killed to feed this evil trade and to promote private profit and sexual gratification. We have to go after the imagery itself. We must build on the successful legislation that has outlawed images of child pornography. If we cut that end of the market, we start to deal with the trade, and that is exactly what part 6 of the Bill—a part that is well crafted, sensible and well thought through—seeks to do.
	I have received opposition, as have my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (David Lepper) and others, from groups claiming to represent the bondage, domination and sado-masochistic communities. I have learned that they organise themselves into munch clubs—I do not want to go any further into that. Let me make it clear to them that nobody is seeking to introduce a new level of censorship; we are talking about imagery that is already illegal. If people want to do weird things to each other they still can, but I say, "Don't put it on the internet." I do not need to see it and nor do my constituents—and, more importantly and seriously, those of an unbalanced mind who could be tipped over the edge by violent and extreme imagery do not need to see it, and we do not need to live with the consequences of their actions if they were to see it.
	Those of us who have been involved in the issue and this three-year campaign on it are aware of the background, but it might be useful if we were to set out some of the steps that have led to us being, I hope, able to celebrate the start of the passage of these measures into legislation. The House has not had an opportunity to debate this issue in full since the Adjournment debates secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion in May 2004.
	On March 14 2003, Brighton schoolteacher Jane Longhurst was horrifically murdered by a self-confessed addict of violent internet pornography. The murderer, Graham Coutts, admitted watching sites featuring necrophilia and violence against women only hours before he killed Jane. He was jailed for life and his appeals against the convictions were rejected. Anyone who saw the CCTV images broadcast on regional television of Coutts revisiting the storage unit where he kept Jane Longhurst's body can be left with no other impression than that dark and evil forces were at work in the mind of that individual. Jane's mother, Liz, comes from Reading, which is why I am involved. She is convinced that had it not been for the corrupting effect of extreme internet sites her daughter would still be alive today.
	Outside Lewes Crown court on the day that Graham Coutts was first convicted of Jane's murder, Liz Longhurst appealed to the public and politicians to begin a campaign to protect vulnerable people from extreme images of the rape, torture and murder of women for sexual gratification and private profit. On March 8 2004, there was an event in Reading to mark international women's day, at which the Jane Longhurst campaign against violent internet pornography was launched. It attracted the support of 180 Members of all parties for early-day motion 583, and 50,000 people signed a national petition which it was our privilege to present to Parliament as part of the consultation that was launched by previous Home Secretaries. We attracted the support of Amnesty International; that support was crucial in building a high profile for this campaign. Much more needs to be done, but this is a good start.
	Ideally, we would like blocking measures that prevent access—they now exist—to be brought in. We would like all PCs to be fitted with a blocking mechanism before they are sold on the open market—as cars are automatically fitted with seat belts. An obvious measure would be to go after the banks and credit card companies whose processing of payments lubricates this evil trade.
	It will be fitting if I end by quoting from a letter that Liz Longhurst sent today to me—in fact, she really sent it not to me, but to all Members.
	"Dear Martin,
	I am thrilled to realise that on Monday there will be the Second Reading of the Criminal Justice Bill which contains proposed legislation concerning extreme violent pornography.
	This is largely the result of your support"—
	and that of my colleagues—for
	"the Jane Longhurst Campaign and the petition which gathered a substantial number of signatures...I am very grateful too for the active support of David Blunkett and Charles Clarke, successive Home Secretaries, and Paul Goggins and Vernon Coaker who were inspired to incorporate the necessary measures into this Bill."
	I would like all Members to reflect on her concluding words:
	"If these measures can be enacted, I feel this will be a fitting memorial to my lovely daughter Jane who was murdered by a man addicted to extreme violent internet pornography."
	I urge all Members to support this Bill and to help not only to protect vulnerable people from the consequences of extreme pornographic imagery, but to truly achieve justice for Jane once and for all.

Philip Hollobone: I am disappointed with the Bill before us this evening for three reasons. First, it does not deal with the problem of illegal immigrants going missing when they jump out of the back of a lorry. Secondly, there is not enough in it about making parents responsible for their children's misbehaviour. Thirdly, nothing in it promotes, on the justice enforcement side of the equation, the status of persistent and prolific offenders, whom, on the Home Office side of the equation, the police are obliged to pursue. In no more than five minutes, I want to run through why those issues are of concern to people in Kettering.
	In the middle of September, an incident occurred in Northamptonshire whereby 16 illegal immigrants jumped out of the back of a lorry. Three of them were apprehended by Northamptonshire police, who telephoned the Border and Immigration Agency, only to be told, "Let them go. Let them make their own way to the Border and Immigration Agency office in Croydon," which they then did. The  Northampton Chronicle and Echo rightly picked up on the outrage that this story caused in Northamptonshire. To think that illegal immigrants had been apprehended by the police, who were then effectively told by another agency to let them go. I was advised earlier in the debate that provision might be made in the UK Borders Bill for filling this loophole. I hope that in the winding-up remarks, that guarantee will be given. If it is not, I hope to table an amendment to this Bill to ensure that this procedure does not happen in future.
	There is some attempt in the Bill to address the problem of youth misbehaviour, but there is not nearly enough about making parents responsible for the criminal activity of their youngsters. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne), I had the privilege of serving on the police parliamentary scheme, spending 22 days with the Northamptonshire force. One message that local police officers consistently sent to me was that there was very little in the way of sanction that they could impose on youths under 16 committing criminal offences. I said to them, "If the law were changed so that you could serve a fixed penalty notice not on them, but on their parents, for the offence that those youngsters had committed, would that make your job easier?" The universal response was, "Yes, it would." At the moment, there is effectively a gap in the law whereby no one, neither the youngster nor their parents, is made responsible for their criminal activity.
	The third issue is persistent and prolific offenders. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), has pursued it thoroughly, but I want to draw the House's attention to it. The police are given targets for pursuing those known as persistent and prolific offenders—PPOs, to use the jargon. On the wall of Kettering police station, for example, are pictures of all the PPOs in the north Northamptonshire sector whom the police know about. They are pursuing them and they do catch them, but when they bring them before the courts, all too often they are released on bail to commit further offences. It seems to me that the definition that is applied by the police is not being used in the Courts Service. I want this Bill to address that issue, so that known troublemakers can effectively and quickly be locked up, and so that they do not commit crime again.

Charles Walker: I shall endeavour to be brief as I know that other Members want to speak. I have a few observations about the Bill.
	I am all for building more prisons in the short term, but we have to make sure that in the long term people go to prison only once whenever possible, and that while they are in prison they receive the support they need, through education or addiction programmes, to become productive members of society. Prison should not be a revolving door and I hope that the Bill gives us the opportunity to improve the Prison Service to ensure that people are given a chance once they leave prison.
	My second point is about youth offending. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) said, we must engender parental responsibility. The first time a youngster smashes down a bus shelter, the parents should pay a fine. The second time, they should pay a fine and pay for repair of the bus shelter and the third time, they should appear in court alongside their child to face a magistrate or a judge. Unfortunately, only when we start to hit parents in the pocket will they start to take responsibility for their children. Society has a role in raising young people, but no role is greater than that played by their parents.
	My third point relates to antisocial behaviour and alcohol. Most assaults against NHS staff—certainly in accident and emergency departments—are committed by people who are drunk. Most assaults in society are committed by people who are drunk. As a taxpayer, I am fed up with my taxes having to pay for the police to manage the people who commit such crimes. It is about time that we looked to the alcohol industry to pay a levy—a proper contribution—towards the policing of our streets and, if need be, the policing of our hospitals. Football teams pay for policing on match days, so the alcohol and pub industry should put their hand in their pocket to fund crime prevention on our streets and in our hospitals.
	I agree that citizenship should be earned; it is a great privilege to be a citizen of this country. If people come to this country and earn citizenship over 10 years that is a good thing, but if having earned citizenship they commit heinous and hideous crimes, there should be the possibility of revoking it. We may have to deport people to places with a less humane outlook than ours.
	My last point relates to the possession of extreme pornographic material. I, too, am concerned about what comes over the internet; there is some horrible, nasty and unpleasant stuff. Clauses 64 to 67 are not as good as they could be—there is potential for contradiction; for example, in the case of a film called "Hostel Part II", which I have not seen but that has been reported on by a number of people I trust. From beginning to end, it depicts obscene, misogynistic acts of brutality against women—an hour and a half of brutality—yet that film has been passed by the British Board of Film Classification for public release to people aged 18 and over.
	I understand that, although the Bill will not make that film illegal, it could make it illegal for someone to take stills from that film, because they could be deemed to have a purely pornographic nature. If it were deemed that stills from a film such as "Hostel Part II" were of a pornographic and unacceptably violent nature, it seems madness that that film should be allowed on general release. I hope that, as the Bill is considered in Committee, we will look at those concerns to ensure that that part of the Bill is as watertight as it can be.
	I spoken for four minutes, and I shall shut up and sit down.

John McDonnell: I will concentrate on clause 72 and be as quick as I possibly can. My background in this is that, earlier this year, I hosted a meeting of a coalition of organisations called Safety First, which is looking at issues that surround prostitution, particularly the plight of prostitutes and their families. The organisations include the National Association of Probation Officers, the Royal College of Nursing, the Sex Worker Project, the Multiple Choice Rehabilitation Centre, the Zacchaeus Trust, various religious leaders, the English Collective of Prostitutes, the GMB branch of sex workers and two brave individuals, Pauline Campbell—the mother of Sarah, who lost her life in Styal prison—and Toni Cole, the former prostitute who brought the first private prosecution for rape in this country.
	The coalition came together in the aftermath of the five young women who were murdered in Ipswich. The response of the community and people of Ipswich was not to blame the women themselves, but to do all that they possibly could to ensure the safety of such women in the future. The coalition pointed to the criminalisation of consenting sex as a major cause of risk to safety that prevents women from seeking assistance and protection and exiting prostitution. Why? Because criminalisation pushes prostitution underground. It makes women more vulnerable to attack and less accessible to support. Many felt strongly that, by focusing on remedies in the criminal law, we avoid the underlying issues and causes of women entering prostitution and the need to provide real support to allow them to exit it.
	The coalition fears that clause 72 will criminalise prostitution once again, and thousands of women face the risk of imprisonment as a result. The Secretary of State did not take us through clause 72 when he introduced the Bill, but the clause will introduce the compulsory rehabilitation order and promotes it as an alternative to a fine. Anyone who is arrested for loitering or soliciting will be forced to attend three meetings with a supervisor approved by the court
	"to promote...rehabilitation by assisting the offender...to address the causes of"
	their involvement in prostitution and to find ways to end that involvement. Failure to attend any of those sessions will result in a further summons and a possible 72 hours' imprisonment. Magistrates will have powers to make subsequent orders. So women could be forced onto a treadmill of orders, failure to attend, further orders and imprisonment, and round and round they go again.
	There is deep scepticism about the implications and effectiveness of these new orders. Within the criminal justice sector, NAPO has said that they will be unworkable and that they will turn the law back 25 years, to when imprisonment was the norm for prostitution. In the 1980s and 90s, the fines were increased, so that those who were unable to pay eventually went to prison. We found that, even then, 11,000 women were found guilty and put at risk of detention. In 2003, as a result of a lot of campaigning against such draconian measures for prostitution, on average, about 3,500 prostitutes were brought before the courts.
	NAPO's view is that, if the Bill goes through, we could return to a situation where up to 11,000 and more women are detained and imprisoned, when our prisons are overflowing. Magistrates will use these powers as an alternative to fines and will find them increasingly attractive. I shall briefly quote Harry Fletcher from NAPO, who said:
	"Thousands of prostitutes will be criminalised and face three days needlessly in jail at a time when the system is in meltdown."
	Such a proposal is practically almost irrelevant.
	John Furniss of the Multiple Choice Rehabilitation Centre said:
	"Three meetings is window dressing and meaningless. People will miss meetings due to their drug use."
	As we know, 93 per cent. of prostitutes have a drug dependency, according to Home Office figures. The proposal could be dangerously counter-productive. Siobhan Kilkenny from the Sex Worker Project says:
	"Criminalising these people in whatever way it is dressed up will make the most vulnerable and invisible more vulnerable and more invisible and allow tragedies like the Ipswich murders to happen again."
	Further stigmatisation will force people underground and make them more vulnerable to violence and rape; in the past 10 years, 60 women prostitutes have been murdered.
	There are alternatives. We are taking the wrong approach; we should be taking the approach recommended by the Home Office itself: moving away from traditional enforcement under police crackdowns, and shifting prostitution from being a policing problem to a welfare issue. In those reports, we have said that we need to understand why women go into prostitution and why it is that, as a result of drug dependency, unemployment, housing problems and poverty, they are forced into that role.
	We need to create and invest in an effective response, which was set out in the Home Office reports of 2004 and 2006: early intervention, multi-agency working training professionals, outreach workers, one-to-one support, fast-tracking into drugs programmes that are crucial to stabilisation, fast-tracking into emergency accommodation, advice and assistance and specialised support for victims of domestic violence.
	All those matters are ready to hand, but they require investment of resources, and I regret that there have been cuts in the drugs programmes in recent years. We need to move forward into a caring, welfare approach, rather than a criminal process. We need to look at the resources. On that basis, when the Bill comes back on Report, I will seek to remove clause 72 and insert clauses that realistically tackle the problem and measures that provide the alternative resources to invest in the solutions that are needed and that the Home Office itself has recognised.

Harry Cohen: I support much of the Bill, but I want to raise two separate matters. I shall be brief, because of the time available. First, I should like to mention sex. Clause 64(6)(b) mentions an image of an act
	"which appears to result...in serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals".
	I agree with virtually all the clause, and I understand the motivation behind Liz Longhurst's campaign, but my problem is with the phrase "appears to". That will catch all sorts of things that it should not. I have several examples, but time precludes me from raising them. The Government should consider that sub-paragraph, which could be problematic for the future.
	Secondly, I want to raise the much more important issue of children. In the Bill and the notes on it, there are some 15 new conditions and requirements on youth rehabilitation orders—plus another one: the Secretary of State can do what he likes and set another condition on youngsters "by order". A lot of the conditions are okay in themselves, but the approach is unbalanced. For example, a youth offender team manager stated:
	"During the seven years that YOTs have been established, apart from limited finance to establish ISSPs, there has been no additional funding made available to enhance the quality of work with those already in the system. This is despite a 26 per cent. increase nationally in youth court business over the past four years."
	Rod Morgan, the former chair of the Youth Justice Board, says:
	"We are criminalising more and more children and young people—an increase of 26 per cent. between 2002 and 2006—in a period when all the evidence suggests that the incidence of youth offending fell."
	In June, I received a letter from the Howard League for Penal Reform that stated:
	"In statistics published by the Council of Europe in 2005, England and Wales was found to have jailed 2,274 children"—
	the figure has gone up since then—
	"compared to 1,456 in Germany, 628 in France, 73 children in the Netherlands and nine in Norway.
	The profligate use of prison for children, the infliction of pain and injury to control children behind closed doors, child deaths in custody, lack of physical exercise and the use of segregation blocks that might be said to resemble modern day dungeons, are all ways in which the treatment of children in custody amounts to child abuse and in some cases may actually be criminal...In 2002, when considering the last report of the UK government, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child stated that the government had to
	'establish a system of juvenile justice that fully integrates into its legislation, policies and practice the provisions and principles of the Convention', including by raising the minimum age for criminal responsibility, ensuring 'that no child can be tried as an adult irrespective of the circumstances or gravity of his/her offence', ensuring 'that detention of children is used as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time and that children are separated from adults in detention'".
	That just has not happened. What we have is a cluttering of the system with relatively minor cases, too many prosecutions instead of pre-court settlements, and insufficient discretion—for example, for the police to deal with matters in situ, or for youth offender teams, or for courts to filter out cases where children's welfare needs are readily apparent and should take priority. Cases such as those involving mental health or family neglect should be diverted away from the court system. Instead, we have adult Crown courts used for children, detention alongside adults, some sentences that are worse for children than for adults for the same offence, and restraint to such an extent that in a recent 18-month period there were more than 2,000 injuries to children in custody. The Howard League for Penal Reform says that, since January 2002, six children have died in custody. That amounts to degrading punishments, and detention not as a last resort, as it should be.
	The age of consent is the lowest in Europe: 10 in England and Wales and eight in Scotland. A 10-year-old is presumed to be as criminally responsible as a fully mature adult. The Government insist that they will not revisit the age of criminal responsibility, but I strongly believe that there should be a proper review. There should, at least, be a layered response to children who commit offences. The welfare of the child should take precedent over being punitive and the child's continued development still needs to be nurtured, whatever the punishment. Rod Morgan argues that some changes for the better can be made administratively, but we have yet to see them and the Bill is an unbalanced approach to dealing with child offenders. Again, the Government should think again.

Kerry McCarthy: In the brief time that I have, I will focus on one aspect of the legislation: the proposals to tackle on-street prostitution in clauses 71 to 73. I will start by putting the matter into a local context. Parts of my constituency and the neighbouring constituency of Bristol, West, have been blighted for many years by highly visible on-street prostitution. I have seen it while out on patrol with the vice squad, when out on the beat with local police officers, and on numerous other occasions when I have been out and about in the constituency.
	I have seen one woman, who is well-known to the local police, walking down the street in broad daylight with her skirt hitched up around her waist, effectively naked from the waist down—and this on one of the busiest main roads in Bristol. I have heard from a local resident who has had prostitutes tapping on his car window as he pulls into his drive, and on one occasion, even jumping into the passenger seat. He is terrified that the police will one day accuse him of kerb-crawling. Local residents complain of finding sex and drug-related debris, such as dirty needles, used condoms and contaminated foil, in areas where they walk their dogs, or where children play. There are two primary schools, May Park and Millpond, where young children coming out of the school gates in the middle of the afternoon have been confronted by prostitutes touting for business. What does a parent say to children in such a situation? I wholeheartedly support the underlying premise of the Government's strategy for prostitution—that we should challenge the view that street prostitution is inevitable and here to stay.
	Some people argue that it is not the state's role to interfere in how women choose to live their lives. They argue that women engaged in such work are exercising free choice, or are somehow in control of their actions, but I would ask them to speak to the woman whom I met the other day, who told me about the 14-year-old who works the street outside her front door. The child is regularly picked up by the police, taken into care, and just as regularly returns to the streets. Or they could talk to the woman whom I watched the vice squad apprehend last year. She was caught more or less in the act with a client, only half-hidden from the view of the street. She had just come out of prison. She told the police that she had kicked her heroin and crack habits, she was being tested regularly at her hostel accommodation, and she was keeping to her curfew. She was trying to get back her young children, who had been taken into care. And yet there she was, back out on the streets, within days of her release, entering into what any reasonable person would see as a totally sordid, totally soul-destroying sexual transaction with a complete stranger.
	Those people should also look at the figures in the regulatory impact assessment, which show that 85 per cent. of those involved in prostitution report having been physically abused by family members, and that 45 per cent. report being sexually abused by a relative. They also show that 75 per cent. of women were under 18 when they were originally coerced into prostitution, and 70 per cent. have spent time in care. As many as 95 per cent. use prostitution to support their own, and often a partner's, drug use.
	That is why I support the proposal in the Bill to introduce compulsory rehabilitative orders, with mandatory counselling, and the possibility of remanding people in prison for up to three days if they fail to comply with the court orders. I accept that there are concerns about this approach. The Prison Reform Trust, for example, has said that the provision
	"fails utterly to understand that vulnerable people with chaotic lives can't be asked to walk a tightrope".
	However, it is precisely because these people have such chaotic lives and are, in so many cases, not ready, able or willing to help themselves, that we have to be more determined in our approach. The alternative would be to allow them to descend into a downwards spiral, until possibly—just possibly—they decide of their own accord that they have reached rock bottom and need to pull themselves out of it. Of course, far too many women reach rock bottom and simply stay there.
	My local vice squad believes that there will have to be penalties if the new system is to work. Like virtually everyone else who responded to the "Paying the Price" consultation, it believes that the current system of fines just encourages street workers to go back to work to pay them off. So the vast majority of those apprehended for on-street prostitution in Bristol—around 83 per cent. of them—simply receive cautions. Of the few who do appear before the courts, some may be referred to drugs agencies, but there is no deterrent for those who choose not to attend rehabilitation programmes. The new proposals would introduce such a deterrent and could provide the incentive needed.
	I could go on to talk about the need for sufficient support structures—

Alan Whitehead: I wish to address a continuing and worsening issue—the difference between what people who obtain their energy from pre-paid meters pay for their energy and what everybody else pays, especially those who pay by direct debit. The difference is substantial—perhaps 16 per cent., and rising, of the fuel bill of someone who is paying by pre-paid meter—and, by and large, it falls disproportionately on those who are least able to afford their energy supply.
	A substantial number of people have pre-pay meters—3.5 million electricity meters in 26 million meters overall and 2.2 million gas pre-pay meters in 20 million overall. People have pre-pay meters for a variety of reasons: some because it helps with budgeting; some because they got into debt under previous arrangements and the meter was installed, among other things, to repay their energy debts; and some because they have inherited the meters from previous tenants or owners. However, what is true for all of them, without exception, is that they pay more for energy using a pre-paid meter than direct debit customers pay. With the exception of customers of Scottish Power, they all pay more than the supplying company's standard tariff.
	Although not all pre-pay meter customers are in fuel poverty, or even among the lower paid, they are disproportionately disadvantaged compared to customers paying other tariffs. Forty per cent. of pre-pay customers are in the two lowest income deciles, which is twice as many as the comparator of all customers. Ten per cent. of pre-pay electricity customers are in fuel poverty compared with only 3.5 per cent. of direct debit customers. In short, those who need affordable energy most pay far more for it than those who do not. What is worse, because of the nature of pre-payment, most of them are not aware of that fact.
	The issue is not brand new. The recent energy White Paper stated that the
	"cost differential between direct debit and pre-payment meters (used by a relatively high proportion of low income households) is increasing, standing at about £120 for a combined gas and electricity bill compared to £84 in 2005".
	At the time, as I have pointed out, that was a 16 per cent. difference in the average gas and electricity bill.
	As the White Paper noted, the differential in 2005-06 was about £70, which was worse than the previous year, and it is even worse now due to the effect of aggressively low-priced online tariffs. The differential may now be about £150 for a combined gas and electricity bill, and it is running out of control.
	In January 2007, the matter was raised in the House by several Members during a debate on energy costs initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke). The National Housing Federation constantly raises the issue with Members and Ministers, and I am indebted to the federation for advice and information for this debate. Members have tabled questions and a recent early-day motion on the subject attracted the signatures of 172 right hon. and hon. Members.
	I am not drawing the attention of the House to something new, but as matters stand, it seems that the differential is on an inexorably widening path and, as far as I can see, for no good reason other than that it is possible for energy companies to levy differential charges with little comeback from the regulatory authorities. It is stated by some of the energy companies, and indeed recently by Ofgem, that pre-pay meters cost more to administer than direct debits or standard tariffs; there is the meter, the cost of recalibrating when tariffs change and paying post offices and shops to provide top-up points for cards. Ofgem suggested that the overall cost merited a difference of £85 per year between a direct debit customer and a pre-paid meter customer.
	Those are raw data and do not include the fact that pre-paid meter income is 100 per cent. secure, unlike direct debits, which can fail through lack of funds, or standard bills, which can go unpaid or need chasing. Indeed, that security of payment is of significant benefit to the energy companies.
	Overall, those differentials, however things are cut, do not justify the differences in charge, nor do they explain why the difference keeps widening or why there is such a variation in charges between energy supply companies. Indeed, one company, Scottish Power, runs pre-pay meter tariffs that are lower than the standard tariff. How come, I wonder, it has not gone out of business by doing so? Indeed, the variations are quite considerable and the differential is highest on dual-fuel tariffs.
	Customers of British Gas pay £107 more on pre-pay gas meters than the average price for gas on direct debit and £33 more for electricity. Customers of EDF pay 25 per cent. on average more for gas pre-paid than for gas on direct debit and £8 more for electricity—the same as the standard tariff. Customers of npower pay £72 more on pre-pay gas meters than on an average direct debit and £81 more for electricity. Powergen customers pay £91 more for gas and £33 for electricity. Scottish and Southern customers pay £77 more on average for gas on pre-pay meters than on direct debit and £22 more for electricity. Customers of the only company with a lower tariff than the standard tariff—Scottish and Southern—pay £30 more on a pre-pay meter than on the average direct debit and £49 for electricity.
	For dual-fuel customers, the gap is even wider. npower has a gap of £184; British Gas, £152; Powergen, £141; Scottish and Southern, £115; Scottish Power, £93, but the price is cheaper than the standard dual-fuel tariff; and EDF, £68.
	Ofgem has recently announced that it intends to run a campaign to persuade pre-pay meter customers to switch. On the basis of those figures, that perhaps looks promising at first sight. Scottish Power should clean up. But there are big problems in relying on switching to get to grips with this problem. It might make some marginal difference, but only a marginal difference, for two reasons. Many pre-pay meter customers are unaware that they are paying more. The bills are not added up and compared in the way that they might be with other forms of tariff. Indeed, an Ipsos MORI prepayment customer workshop in February 2007 for Ofgem stated, after interviewing various participants, that
	"only three out of 20 gas pre-pay meter customers and seven out of 28 electricty pre-pay meter customers knew theirs was not the cheapest method of paying."
	In any event, some pre-pay meter holders are in debt because of recalibration—the process of back charging to recover delays in the recalibration of meters following tariff changes. That has gone down: 115,000 or so people are now in that situation. The figure was more than 400,000 before Ofgem took action in December 2006. However, those people will not be switchers, even if they know that their meters are more expensive. Larger numbers of people than that—some 500,000 electricity customers and 300,000 gas customers—are repaying debt incurred by non-prepayment meter arrangements. That represents 13 to 14 per cent. of all meter customers, and those people will not be switchers either. So what might we do?
	The White Paper also says:
	"We are concerned about these increases, and will look at ways to encourage best practice in protecting the most vulnerable consumers from the large differences in bills because of the payment method they use."
	I recognise that the social tariff arrangements that EDF and British Gas have adopted go some way to assist those who are most vulnerable with their payment of gas and electricity bills. The British Gas tariff matches that for most vulnerable customers to the direct debit tariff. Nevertheless, it does not directly address the pre-pay meter issue.
	Switching, as I have mentioned, is often of only dubious or marginal value. Perhaps Ofgem, instead of or in addition to its switching campaign, should introduce maximum tariff differentials. That might reflect the cost of pre-pay meters if all factors are genuinely taken into account, but my view is that it would not hurt energy companies simply to equalise tariffs. If Scottish Energy can do it and EDF can come close to it, so can all energy companies.
	In many ways, the long-term solution is the roll-out of real-time, remotely calibratable smart meters. There then will be no arguable or possibly justifiable differentiation between tariff costs, but that is some way away. Meanwhile, literally millions of customers will this winter be paying in inflated energy costs a sum getting on for the amount of the winter fuel allowance simply because they are, for whatever reason, on a pre-paid meter. That is not right; it should be put right.

Malcolm Wicks: In the traditional way, I most sincerely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) on securing this debate on a matter of great concern to many colleagues in the House and to many outside it. I thank him for the very thoughtful way in which he has introduced the subject. He is a great authority on it and has a great track record on energy issues and the social aspects of energy. Indeed, at a meeting today with a non-governmental organisation, I heard about the great work that he is doing with combined heat and power in his constituency in Southampton.
	I want to respond to my hon. Friend's contribution as thoroughly as I can in the time allowed. In doing so, I shall say a little about the size and make-up of the pre-payment meter market, an issue that he has touched on. We are talking about a substantial market. There are 3.5 million electricity pre-payment meters and 2.25 million gas pre-payment meters in this country. More than a tenth of customers use these meters to pay for their gas or electricity supply and one in 50 customers uses such meters to repay debt.
	As my hon. Friend emphasised, pre-payment tariffs are not low, but installing and maintaining pre-payment meters is itself not a cheap exercise. An average credit meter costs £10 or less, but a pre-payment meter costs between £50 and £80 and requires a complex payment and support infrastructure involving suppliers, meter owners and thousands of retail outlets. There will inevitably be a tendency to charge less to those customers who make fewer demands on a company's systems compared with those who make more. Internet tariffs tend to be cheaper than direct debit; direct debit tends to be cheaper than standard credit; and standard credit, in turn, tends to be cheaper than pre-payment. However, there is more to be said about differentials, and I would like to return to that subject later.
	It is helpful—indeed, it adds an important nuance or complexity to the debate—to ask who uses pre-payment meters. They are found in a variety of places, including holiday homes, rooms let to students and so on. However, I think that no one would disagree with the view that low-income households constitute the majority of pre-payment customers. Indeed, some will have these meters because, for one reason or another in the more or less recent past, they have fallen into debt to their supplier.
	Less well known is the fact that pre-payment meter customers are by no means synonymous with the fuel poor and by the "fuel poor", I use the standard definition of those who spend or who are required to spend more than 10 per cent. of their income on the energy needed to heat their homes adequately. Although about a quarter of the fuel poor use pre-payment meters and although there is certainly a greater likelihood of fuel poverty if a household uses a pre-payment meter, three quarters of the fuel poor do not use such meters. Indeed, more fuel poor households pay their energy bills by direct debit than by pre-payment meter and only 5 per cent. of elderly people—the pensioners who make up a significant number of the fuel poor—use pre-payment meters.
	If we want to help the low-income customers who use pre-payment meters, the conclusion that we can draw is that we can take one of two broad approaches, although some might argue for a blend of the two. The first is to focus on customers in terms of the type of meter that they use and the second is to focus on low-income customers irrespective of their payment method. Many of those who want to help, including, I think, my hon. Friend are attracted to the first approach, but I am not saying that he is not also attracted to a blend with the second as well. There is nothing wrong in that, but inevitably the focus of those attracted to the first approach makes them impatient for the Government or the regulator to take specific measures of some sort.
	What sort of measures are we talking about? The model we hear most about involves forcing gas and electricity suppliers to reduce pre-payment tariffs to levels similar to those paid by direct debit customers. Much of that was the force of my colleague's analysis.
	The difficulty is that the cost of any reduction in pre-payment meter prices forced on suppliers by the Government or the regulator might not simply be borne with a smile by companies and their shareholders. Like other costs, it would probably be passed on to the customer, and therefore not only better-off customers, but the poorest customers who are not on pre-payment meters, would pay more. The worry is that the poor would be subsidised by some of the very poor, and so on. That is the nuance, or complexity, that I wanted to introduce into the discussion.
	There is a sense in which, as my hon. Friend said, there is statistical support for the fact that differentials have risen far enough to give rise to concern, and to call for an explanation. I refer not just to direct debit and pre-payment meter differentials, but to differentials between direct debit and standard credit. All suppliers have been considering their tariff structures. I may have more up-to-date information than my hon. Friend, because this is fairly quickly moving territory. EDF and Scottish and Southern Energy have equalised their standard credit and pre-payment prices for electricity, while Scottish Power offers pre-payment customers a lower price for both fuels than that paid by standard credit customers. Other suppliers have also acted in this area by introducing social tariffs for vulnerable households that either remove the differential or, in some cases, offer customers prices that are below even direct debit levels. I am in the midst of a series of discussions with the chief executives of our major supply companies on this and related social policy matters. Without prejudging the issue, I should report to the House that I will soon be meeting Sir John Mogg, the Chairman of Ofgem, to discuss the matter with him.
	I would like to talk about what we are doing, and what more we will be doing, to get at what I see as the real heart of the problem. That is how—rather than focusing narrowly on the pre-payment tariff—we improve the lot of low-income customers as a whole. We need to redouble our efforts to increase understanding of the market and how customers can use it to cut their energy bills. There are two simple messages. First, there are still big gains to be had from switching supplier, and half of us have not taken that most basic step. I do not think that, even under freedom of information legislation, I will say what half I fall into, although things have been busy recently. There are big gains to be had from switching payment method. Why not use the differential as a trigger to look at paying in other ways? Almost all of the population have bank accounts or can open basic accounts with direct debit facilities. We should encourage people to use them. I fully appreciate that some customers are using a pre-payment meter to pay off debt, but the overwhelming majority are not and that majority could save £200 a year by switching supplier and payment method. That is a message that the Government, Ofgem and bodies such as Energywatch have pushed hard, and continue to push.
	There are additional benefits. Just as suppliers like direct debit because accounts are much easier to administer, so customers using direct debit avoid the nuisance of recharging keys or buying tokens. Although pre-payment meters, Fuel Direct and weekly payments all have their place in the market—I am glad they are available—they can also signal self-imposed exclusion from the financial mainstream, which is in turn closely linked to wider social exclusion. If people want to keep their pre-payment meter, of course that is fine. If they want to stay with their incumbent supplier, fine. But let us do all that we can to ensure that these are positive decisions, not simply the product of inertia, because the very best interventions in markets are those that customers make for themselves.
	I hope that what I have said underlines the Government's commitment to addressing the problems faced by energy customers on low incomes. I am bound to say that I am very aware of the theme that often the poor pay more, not just for energy, but in many other fields. I am sensitive to that.
	I hope that I have explained why our preferred approach is not to treat pre-payment meter customers in quarantine, but to help them, as we help all low-income customers, irrespective of the payment method that they use. We encounter the same challenges in reaching and helping pre-payment customers as we do with other customers, and the same range of measures helps them as helps other customers. That does not mean that we will not keep a close watch on the treatment of pre-payment meter customers; I am keeping a close watch on it, as well as on the progress on recalibrating token meters and replacing them with more efficient key meters. Nor does it mean that we will not keep a close watch on tariffs and how they compare with other payment methods. I do see movement from supply companies on that, and I expect further movement in the months to come.
	Those are essential elements of the work of a Government concerned with customer protection and social justice, but that close watch will continue to form part of our larger strategy of helping low-income customers to reduce energy bills, improve their thermal comfort, and maximise their household income.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes to Eleven o'clock.